Referring to Healthcare information technology (HIT) as the application of information processing involving both computer hardware and software that deals with the storage, retrieval, sharing, and use of health care information, data, and knowledge for communication and decision making, we can see a strong relationship with the Patient safety regarded as the prevention of harm to patient, practically representing the cornerstone of high-quality health care.
The goal of this presentation is to provide some judgments trying to answer the question: It is truthful that the use of health IT enhances patient safety and efficiency?
Approximatively half-century ago, health IT promised to make health care faster, better, safer, universally available, and more clinician-friendly.
Most of us believed health IT would automatically improve the Patient safety, but… until today the HIT tools as overall electronic medical records (EMRs) or electronic health records (EHRs), computerized physician order entry (CPOE), the bar code medication administration (BCMA), automated medication dispensing (ADC), patient data management systems (PDMS), electronic incident reporting (eIR), Telemedicine and electronic prescribing (eRx)— remain with a low implementation rate.
The presentation will exemplify the barriers to health IT adoption impacting the Patient Safety: absence of interoperability standard, technophobic physicians, funding to buy health IT, lack of incentives to use health IT, lack of certification programs, lack of data format standards, lack of hospital technical expertise, incompatibility of formats and interfaces with other existent systems, not enough emphasis on usability aspects.
