• Center on Health Equity and Access
  • Clinical
  • Health Care Cost
  • Health Care Delivery
  • Insurance
  • Policy
  • Technology
  • Value-Based Care

Health IT Poses Safety Problems if Users Not Trained Properly

Article

When clinical staff at a MedStar Health hospital near Washington misunderstood a confusing pop-up box on a digital blood-sugar reader in 2011, they mistakenly gave insulin to a patient with low blood sugar, which caused her to go into a diabetic coma. Hospital staff had earlier made a seemingly minor customization to the glucometer, which led to the error.

In 2013, a patient admitted to Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, Ill., did not receive his previously prescribed psychiatric medicine for nearly three weeks during a hospital stay because the pharmacy's computer system was programmed to automatically discontinue orders for certain types of drugs after a predetermined time. There was no alert programmed into the system to let the patient's care team know the drug order had been suspended.

Source: Modern HealthCare

Read the full story: http://bit.ly/XqQ2eg

Related Videos
dr krystyn van vliet
dr mitzi joi williams
Stephen Speicher, MD, MS
dr marisa mcginley
Mike Brown, Vice President of Managed Care, Cardinal Health
Mike Brown, vice president of managed services at Cardinal Health
Mike Brown, vice president of managed services, Cardinal Health
Brian Mullen, PhD, head of innovation and product, The Clinic by Cleveland Clinic
Bevey Miner, executive vice president of health care strategy and policy, Consensus Cloud Solutions
Mike Brown, Vice President of Managed Care at Cardinal Health
Related Content
© 2024 MJH Life Sciences
AJMC®
All rights reserved.