EHR vendors endorse medical error reporting system

Recognizing that electronic health records (EHRs) can and do cause medical errors, a group of EHR vendors has agreed to support a patient-safety organization's online system for reporting adverse events. The HIMSS EHR Association, an affiliate of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society that represents 44 EHR vendors, announced Monday that it is promoting the use of EHRevent, a year-old reporting system developed by the iHealth Alliance. The iHealth Alliance is a patient-safety organization convened by major U.S. medical societies, medical malpractice insurers, other patient-safety advocates, and liaisons from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.