Eight rights of safe electronic health record use

Computers can improve the safety, quality, and efficiency of health care.1 The pressure on hospitals and physicians to adopt electronic health records (EHRs) has never been greater. However, concerns have been raised about the safety of EHRs in light of the limitations of currently available software, the inexperience of clinicians and information technologists in implementation and use, and potential adverse outcomes associated with clinician order entry and other clinical applications.[2-4] President Obama has referred to EHRs as a solution to reduce medical errors. To avoid medical errors resulting from EHR use and to achieve the promise of EHRs, this Commentary proposes 8 rights of safe EHR use. These rights are grounded in Carayon’s Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety, [5] a human factors engineering model that addresses work-system design for patient safety.