Dive Brief:
- The federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has released a package of nine evidence-based toolkits aimed at helping providers make safer use of EHRs and other health IT.
- The suite of tools, known as Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience (SAFER), including checklists and recommended practices designed to help providers be optimally safe with EHRs.
- The SAFER guides are designed to complement existing health IT safety tools developed by the ONC and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Dive Insight:
With EHRs becoming central to how providers operate, it's good to see guides coming out to help them with recommended practices for use in key areas such as high-priority practices, clinician communication, CPOE and decision support and test results review and follow-up. Simply getting an EHR installed, running and free of major bugs is a big enough accomplishment as it is. Offering additional evidence-based guidance on how to use them safely is a big plus.