Trendwatch Issue Brief 3: Improving Patient Safety and Health Care Quality through Health Information Technology

Hospitals and health systems increasingly use EHRs and other health IT tools to support patient safety and improve care delivery. These tools have varying capabilities, but core functions include capturing clinical information – such as physician and nursing notes, test results, prescriptions, and problem lists – and ongoing monitoring and analysis of patient status indicators and outcomes. While the promise of health IT for quality and safety improvement has begun to materialize, there is still more to achieve. This brief is the third in a series highlighting survey results from the 2016 AHA Annual Survey Information Technology Supplement for community hospitals collected November 2016 – April 2017. This brief focuses on the use of health IT by hospitals and health systems to improve patient safety and health care quality.