Advisory panel proposes national electronic health record safety database

On March 12, the Health IT Policy Committee proposed creating a national database into which clinicians could report patient data errors and unsafe conditions they encountered in their use of electronic health records.

Clinicians could use the system to report instances - noticeably inaccurate patient data or an EHR technical glitch, for instance - that they believed might compromise patient safety. The idea was one of several preliminary recommendations that the committee's adoption and certification work group discussed. The group also suggested establishing an organization that could oversee a nationwide EHR safety system and provide other methods for reporting, analyzing and disseminating incident reports.