Yearb Med Inform 2016; 25(01): 30-40
DOI: 10.15265/IY-2016-029
IMIA and Schattauer GmbH
Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart

Methods for Addressing Technology-induced Errors: The Current State

E. Borycki
1   School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
,
J. W. Dexheimer
2   Division of Emergency Medicine, Division of Biomedical Informatics, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America
,
C. Hullin Lucay Cossio
3   Duoc UC, Santiago, Chile
,
Y. Gong
4   School of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America
,
S. Jensen
5   Center of IT, Medical Tech. and Telephony, Capital Region of Denmark, Denmark
,
J. Kaipio
6   Department of Computer Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
,
S. Kennebeck
7   Division of Emergency Medicine, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America
,
E. Kirkendall
8   Division of Biomedical Informatics, Department of Information Services, Division of Hospital Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
9   James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
,
A. W. Kushniruk
1   School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
,
C. Kuziemsky
10   Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa,, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
,
R. Marcilly
11   INSERM CIC-IT 1403 / Evalab, Lille, Univ Lille Nord de France, CHU Lille, Lille, France
,
R. Röhrig
12   Department for Medical Informatics, Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg, Germany
,
K. Saranto
13   University of Eastern Finland, Department of Health and Social Management, Kuopio, Finland
,
Y. Senathirajah
14   Department of Medical Informatics, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA
,
J. Weber
15   Department of Computer Science, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
,
H. Takeda
16   Graduate School of Health Care Sciences, Jikei Institute, Osaka, Japan
› Author Affiliations
Further Information

Publication History

10 November 2016

Publication Date:
06 March 2018 (online)

Summary

Objectives: The objectives of this paper are to review and discuss the methods that are being used internationally to report on, mitigate, and eliminate technology-induced errors.

Methods: The IMIA Working Group for Health Informatics for Patient Safety worked together to review and synthesize some of the main methods and approaches associated with technology-induced error reporting, reduction, and mitigation. The work involved a review of the evidence-based literature as well as guideline publications specific to health informatics.

Results: The paper presents a rich overview of current approaches, issues, and methods associated with: (1) safe HIT design, (2) safe HIT implementation, (3) reporting on technology-induced errors, (4) technology-induced error analysis, and (5) health information technology (HIT) risk management. The work is based on research from around the world. Conclusions: Internationally, researchers have been developing methods that can be used to identify, report on, mitigate, and eliminate technology-induced errors. Although there remain issues and challenges associated with the methodologies, they have been shown to improve the quality and safety of HIT. Since the first publications documenting technology-induced errors in healthcare in 2005, we have seen in a short 10 years researchers develop ways of identifying and addressing these types of errors. We have also seen organizations begin to use these approaches. Knowledge has been translated into practice in a short ten years whereas the norm for other research areas is of 20 years.

 
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