The Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety Convenes on "Partnering for Success" at ECRI Institute

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Sept. 15, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- To mark the important role health information technology plays in improving healthcare delivery, ECRI Institute and others across the U.S. have joined together to celebrate National Health Information Technology Week, September 15-19. The theme this year is "One Voice, One Vision: Transforming Health and Care." 

In step with this year's theme, ECRI Institute has convened a multi-stakeholder collaborative called the Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety. Key stakeholders in the Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety are meeting at ECRI Institute headquarters on September 23, 2014, for a one-day program called "Partnering for Success."

The program, sponsored by the Jayne Koskinas Ted Giovanis Foundation for Health and Policy, will bring leaders from healthcare institutions, health IT developers, patient safety organizations, associations, and researchers together to identify and define key priorities for enhancing the safety of health IT.

The overall goal of the private sector initiative is to advance the safety and safe use of health IT, and using health IT to make care safer. It leverages the work of patient safety organizations, provider organizations, health IT vendors, an expert advisory panel, and collaborating organizations, and aims to create a learning environment that mitigates risk and facilitates improvement.

"But the true value rests in this being a collaboration among many stakeholders. By working together, we can create a learning environment in which to accelerate best practices and embark upon improvement initiatives. Our upcoming meeting explores opportunities through dialogue, facilitated discussion, and interactive breakout sessions—with the goal of identifying tools and next steps for shared learning," states Ronni Solomon, JD, executive vice president and general counsel, ECRI Institute. "We're all going to be looking at what's happening, why it's happening, and what we can do," noted Solomon in a video interview with Hospitals & Health Networks.

Karen P. Zimmer, MD, MPH, FAAP, medical director, ECRI Institute PSO, is speaking at an official Health IT Week event, a webinar from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, on September 19, 2014. Her presentation, "Health IT Safety: Progress Made and Challenges Ahead," focuses on initiatives ECRI Institute PSO has completed in health IT safety this past year.

"We are learning how to better implement technology, how to make decisions about it, how to structure leadership and selection, how to avoid unwanted events, and improve overall safety," continued Solomon. "Many events that we study at ECRI don't manifest as a health IT event; they manifest as a medication error or a surgical mishap or a misdiagnosis. But then when you look more deeply you identify the role of health IT. We need to be able to communicate and understand why these events are happening and align patient safety in the hospital with the health IT functions."

"We are hoping to enhance the learnings and then together come up with solutions that would address these issues," states Dr. Zimmer.

To learn more about ECRI Institute's research on health IT safety, visit www.ecri.org; or contact us by telephone at (610) 825-6000, ext. 5891; by e-mail at [email protected]; or by fax at (610) 834-1275. If you would like to receive free resources from ECRI Institute, visit our Center for Health IT Safety and Innovation and sign up for our e-mail newsletters.

About ECRI Institute
ECRI Institute (www.ecri.org), a nonprofit organization, dedicates itself to bringing the discipline of applied scientific research to healthcare to discover which medical procedures, devices, drugs, and processes are best to enable improved patient care. As pioneers in this science for more than 45 years, ECRI Institute marries experience and independence with the objectivity of evidence-based research. Strict conflict-of-interest guidelines ensure objectivity. ECRI Institute is designated an Evidence-based Practice Center by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. ECRI Institute PSO is listed as a federally certified Patient Safety Organization by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Find ECRI Institute on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ECRIInstitute) and on Twitter (www.twitter.com/ECRI_Institute).

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SOURCE ECRI Institute