Safe use of electronic health records and health information technology systems: trust but verify.

Charles R. Denham; David Classen; Stephen J. Swenson; Michael J. Henderson; Thomas Zeltner; David W. Bates

Study

Safe use of electronic health records and health information technology systems: trust but verify.

December 18, 2013

Denham CR, Classen D, Swenson SJ, et al. J Patient Saf. 2013;9(4):177-89.

View more articles from the same authors.

Health information technology (IT) safety is the greatest concern of health care leaders in this study. Using the adage "trust but verify," this article outlines a framework to measure and monitor performance of health IT following implementation.

PubMed citation

Available at

Related Resources From the Same Author(s)

The National Quality Forum safe practice standard for computerized physician order entry: updating a critical patient safety practice.

January 10, 2007

Health care-associated infections: a meta-analysis of costs and financial impact on the US health care system.

September 18, 2013

Evaluation and certification of computerized physician order entry systems.

November 22, 2006

Critical drug–drug interactions for use in electronic health records systems with computerized physician order entry: review of leading approaches.

June 15, 2011

A safe practice standard for barcode technology.

June 3, 2015

SBAR for patients.

March 12, 2008

TRUST: the 5 rights of the second victim.

June 27, 2007

The new patient safety officer: a lifeline for patients, a life jacket for CEOs.

April 4, 2007

The partnership with patients: a call to action for leaders.

September 7, 2011

Patient safety: let's measure what matters.

May 21, 2014

The hospital discharge: a review of a high risk care transition with highlights of a reengineered discharge process.

June 20, 2007

November 22, 2006

The cost of harm and savings through safety: using simulated patients for leadership decision support.

September 12, 2012

Mixed results in the safety performance of computerized physician order entry.

April 21, 2010

Patient perceptions of hospital experiences: implications for innovations in patient safety.

March 16, 2022

Design of a safety dashboard for patients.

December 18, 2019

Assessing the safety of electronic health records: a national longitudinal study of medication-related decision support.

August 7, 2019

Bending the patient safety curve: how much can AI help?

February 1, 2023

Digital health and patient safety.

April 27, 2016

The tradeoffs between safety and alert fatigue: data from a national evaluation of hospital medication-related clinical decision support.

July 29, 2020

Improving patient safety reporting with the common formats: common data representation for Patient Safety Organizations.

November 16, 2016

National trends in the safety performance of electronic health record systems from 2009 to 2018.

June 17, 2020

Improving electronic health record usability and safety requires transparency.

December 12, 2018

Safety of patients isolated for infection control.

March 27, 2005

Inpatient EHR user experience and hospital EHR safety performance.

October 4, 2023

Electronic health record legal settlements in the US since the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act.

December 21, 2022

Disclosure through our eyes.

March 19, 2008

Unexpected hypoglycemia in a critically ill patient.

March 15, 2006

Computerized physician order entry and medication errors: finding a balance.

July 6, 2005

John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety Awards. Research: David W. Bates, MD, MSc, Brigham and Women's Hospital.

March 6, 2005

Comparative accuracy of diagnosis by collective intelligence of multiple physicians vs individual physicians.

March 13, 2019

Why do we still page each other? Examining the frequency, types and senders of pages in academic medical services.

February 3, 2016

An electronic health record–based real-time analytics program for patient safety surveillance and improvement.

December 5, 2018

A randomized trial of electronic clinical reminders to improve medication laboratory monitoring.

July 23, 2008

Lessons learned from implementation of computerized provider order entry in 5 community hospitals: a qualitative study.

August 14, 2013

"I wish I had seen this test result earlier!": dissatisfaction with test result management systems in primary care.

April 3, 2005

National efforts to improve health information system safety in Canada, the United States of America and England.

January 30, 2013

Quality initiatives: developing a radiology quality and safety program: a primer.

August 26, 2009

The development and piloting of the Ambulatory Electronic Health Record Evaluation Tool: lessons learned.

March 17, 2021

Health information exchange and patient safety.

November 7, 2007

Medication safety: moving from illusion to reality.

March 6, 2005

Two decades since To Err Is Human: an assessment of progress and emerging priorities in patient safety.

November 7, 2018

Medication administration errors by nurses: adherence to guidelines.

January 30, 2013

Can electronic clinical documentation help prevent diagnostic errors?

March 31, 2010

Quality and safety: learning from the past and (re)imagining the future.

March 29, 2023

Association of hospital public quality reporting with electronic health record medication safety performance.

October 6, 2021

Improving safety with information technology.

March 6, 2005

Health apps and health policy: what is needed?

October 24, 2018

Serious adverse drug events reported to the Food and Drug Administration, 1998-2005.

September 19, 2007

Costs of adverse events in intensive care units.

September 26, 2007

The relationship between perceived practice quality and quality improvement activities and physician practice dissatisfaction, professional isolation, and work-life stress.

August 5, 2009

Radiation protection and dose monitoring in medical imaging: a journey from awareness, through accountability, ability and action … but where will we arrive?

December 4, 2013

Engaging patients in the use of real-time electronic clinical data to improve the safety and reliability of their own care.

May 4, 2022

Are you listening...Are you really listening?

September 17, 2008

Results of a survey on medical error reporting systems in Korean hospitals.

August 31, 2005

Completeness of serious adverse drug event reports received by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2014.

April 6, 2016

The use of computers for clinical care: a case series of advanced US sites.

March 6, 2005

Transformational improvement in quality care and health systems: the next decade.

November 25, 2020

Improving ambulatory patient safety: learning from the last decade, moving ahead in the next.

December 21, 2011

Racism and electronic health records (EHRs): perspectives for research and practice.

April 12, 2023

Pediatric medication safety and the media: what does the public see?

June 21, 2006

Incidence of adverse drug events and medication errors in Japan: the JADE Study.

November 3, 2010

Preventable adverse drug events and their causes and contributing factors: the analysis of register data.

February 16, 2011

Adverse events and near misses relating to information management in a hospital.

June 22, 2016

Impact of non-interruptive medication laboratory monitoring alerts in ambulatory care.

January 7, 2009

Conceptual and practical challenges associated with understanding patient safety within community-based mental health services.

December 7, 2022

The relationship between electronic health records and malpractice claims.

July 11, 2012

Unit-based clinical pharmacists' prevention of serious medication errors in pediatric inpatients.

July 23, 2008

Suicide in the medical setting.

August 20, 2008

The economics of health care quality and medical errors.

November 14, 2012

The incidence and severity of adverse events affecting patients after discharge from the hospital.

March 6, 2005

Impact of multidisciplinary team huddles on patient safety: a systematic review and proposed taxonomy.

May 6, 2020

Addition of electronic prescription transmission to computerized prescriber order entry: effect on dispensing errors in community pharmacies.

February 2, 2011

Examining the relationship of an all-cause harm patient safety measure and critical performance measures at the frontline of care.

February 28, 2018

Medical error disclosure among pediatricians: choosing carefully what we might say to parents.

October 15, 2008

Informatics opportunities: the intersection of patient safety and clinical informatics.

May 14, 2008

Safe electronic health record use requires a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation framework.

February 10, 2010

Getting moving on patient safety—harnessing electronic data for safer care.

November 23, 2011

Physician burnout in the electronic health record era: are we ignoring the real cause?

May 9, 2018

Effects of computerized physician order entry and clinical decision support systems on medication safety: a systematic review.

July 18, 2007

What practices will most improve safety? Evidence-based medicine meets patient safety.

April 12, 2006

The potential of artificial intelligence to improve patient safety: a scoping review.

March 31, 2021

Conflict of interest, Dr Charles Denham and the Journal of Patient Safety.

December 3, 2014

Supporting the emotional well-being of health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

August 5, 2020

Recovery from medical errors: the critical care nursing safety net.

January 31, 2006

Randomized trial to improve prescribing safety in ambulatory elderly patients.

September 12, 2007

Communication training, adverse events, and quality measures: 2 retrospective database analyses in Washington State hospitals.

August 9, 2017

Post-discharge adverse events among urban and rural patients of an urban community hospital: a prospective cohort study.

May 20, 2015

Factors associated with unanticipated day of surgery deaths in Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals.

December 17, 2008

Communicating critical test results: safe practice recommendations.

April 3, 2005

Incident reporting system does not detect adverse drug events: a problem for quality improvement.

March 27, 2005

Guided prescription of psychotropic medications for geriatric inpatients.

May 18, 2005

Policy and the future of adverse event detection using information technology.

March 6, 2005

Impact of inpatient harms on hospital finances and patient clinical outcomes.

April 15, 2015

No excuses: the reality that demands action.

September 1, 2005

Computerized surveillance of adverse drug events in hospital patients.

March 27, 2005

Examining the attitudes of hospital pharmacists to reporting medication safety incidents using the theory of planned behaviour.

September 9, 2015

Development of an electronic pediatric all-cause harm measurement tool using a modified Delphi method.

December 7, 2016

To tell the truth: ethical and practical issues in disclosing medical mistakes to patients.

March 6, 2005

Strategies for detecting adverse drug events among older persons in the ambulatory setting.

March 6, 2005

Related Resources

Patient Safety Innovations

Ambulatory Safety Nets to Reduce Missed and Delayed Diagnoses of Cancer

July 31, 2023

Patient Safety Innovations

Remote Response Team and Customized Alert Settings Help Improve Management of Sepsis

May 31, 2023

The impact of an electronic alert to reduce the risk of co-prescription of low molecular weight heparins and direct oral anticoagulants.

July 6, 2022

Preventing delayed and missed care by applying artificial intelligence to trigger radiology imaging follow-up.

March 30, 2022

Identifying health information technology usability issues contributing to medication errors across medication process stages.

July 7, 2021

Assessing the safety of electronic health records: a national longitudinal study of medication-related decision support.

August 7, 2019

Validation of a mobile app for reducing errors of administration of medications in an emergency.

June 19, 2019

Structured override reasons for drug–drug interaction alerts in electronic health records.

May 15, 2019

Adversarial attacks on medical machine learning.

April 3, 2019

Essential activities for electronic health record safety: a qualitative study.

March 20, 2019

Measuring the rate of manual transcription error in outpatient point-of-care testing.

March 13, 2019

Approaches and Challenges to Electronically Matching Patients' Records Across Providers.

March 6, 2019

The impact of computerised physician order entry and clinical decision support on pharmacist–physician communication in the hospital setting: a qualitative study.

February 27, 2019

Three laws for paperlessness.

February 20, 2019

A decade of health information technology usability challenges and the path forward.

February 13, 2019

ISMP Guidelines for Safe Electronic Communication of Medication Information.

February 6, 2019

WebM&M Cases

Critical Order Set Change and Critical Limb Ischemia

January 1, 2019

Patient groups, clinicians and healthcare professionals agree—all test results need to be seen, understood and followed up.

December 19, 2018

Accurate measurement In California's safety-net health systems has gaps and barriers.

December 19, 2018

Identifying electronic health record usability and safety challenges in pediatric settings.

November 28, 2018

Specifications of computerized provider order entry and clinical decision support systems for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy: a systematic review.

October 10, 2018

People, processes, health IT and accurate patient identification.

October 10, 2018

Engaging hospital patients in the medication reconciliation process using tablet computers.

September 26, 2018

Screening for medication errors using an outlier detection system.

February 8, 2017

Measuring adverse events in hospitalized patients: an administrative method for measuring harm.

September 7, 2016

Health information technologies: from hazardous to the dark side.

August 3, 2016

Goals and Priorities for Health Care Organizations to Improve Safety Using Health IT. Revised Report.

June 29, 2016

The automated operating room: a team approach to patient safety and communication.

October 8, 2014

Can wearable tech prevent healthcare errors?

March 26, 2014

We need to talk: an observational study of the impact of electronic medical record implementation on hospital communication.

March 19, 2014

See More About The Topic

Hospitals

Health Care Executives and Administrators

Information Professionals

General Internal Medicine

Hospital Medicine

Safe use of electronic health records and health information technology systems: trust but verify.

Ambulatory Safety Nets to Reduce Missed and Delayed Diagnoses of Cancer

Remote Response Team and Customized Alert Settings Help Improve Management of Sepsis

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Safe use of electronic health records and health information technology systems: trust but verify.

Ambulatory Safety Nets to Reduce Missed and Delayed Diagnoses of Cancer

Remote Response Team and Customized Alert Settings Help Improve Management of Sepsis

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue Logged In

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue logged in

New Users to the PSNet site