How can the EHR help improve patient safety?
One of the main reasons that there is such a big national movement toward electronic medical records is the increasing evidence that they improve patient safety. The problem of medical errors has received much attention in recent years. It turns out that the majority of errors can be attributed to illegible or incorrectly interpreted handwritten orders, to inadequate or incomplete information about the patient, or to knowledge gaps about appropriate treatments or standards of care. The most important contribution that the EHR makes to patient safety is computerized provider order entry (CPOE). By entering orders, especially medication orders, directly into the system, errors caused by illegibility or incorrect copying can be virtually eliminated. The system allows automated checks for allergies and drug-drug interactions, and includes a comment field that providers can use to clarify new or changing medication orders. By making clinical decision support available at the point of care,
