EHRs Fail to Detect Up to One-third of Medication Errors

HealthLeaders Media June 1, 2020
John Commins

In 2009, EHRs correctly issued alerts about potential medication problems only 54% of the time. By 2018, EHRs detected about 66% of these errors.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

– Hospitals often customize their EHR software and that makes it difficult to keep up with all changes in drug safety.

– Those limitations mean that a drug interaction that would trigger EHR warnings at one hospital might not at another.

One of the big promises made in the nation’s decade-long, multibillion-dollar push to expand the use of electronic health records was that it would reduce medication errors.

Now, a new study published in JAMA Network Open suggests that EHRs are not delivering on that promise.

Researchers at the University of Utah Health, Harvard...

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