{"id":7036,"date":"2014-12-22T13:26:26","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T18:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.healthit.gov\/buzz-blog\/?p=7036"},"modified":"2026-01-05T21:38:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T21:38:35","slug":"learning-healthit-related-adverse-events-patient-safety-organizations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthit.gov\/blog\/electronic-health-and-medical-records\/learning-healthit-related-adverse-events-patient-safety-organizations\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning About Health IT-Related Adverse Events from Patient Safety Organizations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today ONC posted a final summary report on Health Information Technology Adverse Event Reporting:\u00a0 Analysis of Two Databases<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/b>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/wp-block><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patient safety thrives in health care organizations where reporting of adverse events, including near misses and unsafe conditions, is encouraged.  The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 directed the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to create Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs) and “Common Formats” to encourage adverse event reporting that could be aggregated across organizations to inform a learning health system for better, safer care.  AHRQ’s Common Formats include standard questions and narrative text fields about all types of adverse events, not just questions on health IT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an effort to better understand the role of health IT in adverse events, ONC funded analyses of adverse events reported to two PSOs — UHC<\/a> and ECRI Institute (ECRI)<\/a>.  These analyses began by reviewing hundreds of thousands of adverse events from all causes reported to the two PSOs, since January 2011 for UHC and October 2009 for ECRI.   Both PSOs collect information on adverse events beyond the Common Formats questions. The final report posted today summarizes findings from the analyses, which include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n