Reducing Medical Malpractice – Will Electronic Patient Data Help?
A recent article in the New York Times notes that the Institute of Medicine has created a “Committee on Patient Safety and Health Information Technology,” which is set to meet for the first time on Tuesday. The committee was formed pursuant an increased focus on converting hospitals to a paperless system in order to lessen the frequency of medical malpractice and reduce costs.
The New England Journal of Medicine has concluded that despite the increased awareness of medical errors, thousands of deadly mistakes occur in hospitals each year. Electronic record systems, often thought of as useful way to eliminate errors, are now attracting concerns due to problems with the records themselves, including design flaws and communication breakdowns that place patients in harms way.
These errors include patient’s data being saved in the wrong file and incorrect entries concerning drug allergies, blood pressure readings and other vital information. In fact, hundreds of voluntary reports were made of malfunctions in health information technology, which led to 44 injuries and 6 deaths in 2008 and 2009. As a result of these errors, the Institute of Medicine has brought together a group of health information experts to evaluate what can be done to assure the efficacy of software designed to improve patient safety at hospitals around the country.
Medical errors and mistakes often constituting medical malpractice continue to occur too frequently at many of the nation’s hospitals. As Hawaii medical malpractice attorneys we are hopeful that health professionals find ways to improve patient safety.
For more information, or if you believe you or a loved one was harmed by a medical error or medical malpractice, contact the attorneys at Bostwick & Peterson, LLP today.
