The taxonomy was developed and piloted through a federally-funded collaboration with Abt Associates and Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger Health System’s Patient Safety Institute. The taxonomy allows for the standardized collection of data on health IT problems, which allows for the identification of specific hazards and the ability to analyze and trend data.
The ultimate goal of the reporting system is to allow healthcare organizations to identify and mitigate health IT hazards before patient safety is compromised.
“It is important to understand the nature of health IT hazards, defined as any characteristic of health IT or its interactions with other systems — including humans — that increases the likelihood of compromised care-process and patient harm. It is equally important to correct health IT systems to reduce or avoid such risks,” said Karen P. Zimmer, MD, medical director of ECRI Institute PSO, in the news release.
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