hardeep singh

New Unintended Adverse Consequences of Electronic Health Records

Although the health information technology industry has made considerable progress in the design, development, implementation, and use of electronic health records (EHRs), the lofty expectations of the early pioneers have not been met.

A Socio-Technical Approach to Preventing, Mitigating, and Recovering from Ransomware Attacks

In this manuscript, we discuss a socio-technical approach to address ransomware and outline four overarching steps that organizations can undertake to secure an electronic health record (EHR) system and the underlying computing infrastructure.

Variation in high-priority drug-drug interaction alerts across institutions and electronic health records

Currently, there is no standard of care covering which DDI alerts to implement or how to display them to providers. Opportunities to improve DDI alerting include using differential displays based on DDI severity, establishing improved lists of clinically significant DDIs, and thoroughly reviewing organizational implementation decisions regarding DDIs.

SAFER EHRs: A Video Introduction to the SAFER Guides

A short video created by Westat for the ONC that describes the SAFER Guides which are designed to help healthcare organizations conduct self-assessments to optimize the safety and safe use of electronic health records (EHRs) in the following areas: High Priority Practices, Organizational Responsibilities, Contingency Planning, System Configuration, System Interfaces, Patient Identification, […]

Webinar: ISQua on “Making Health Information Technology SAFER”

Here is a link to a webinar presented to the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua). The webinar provides an introduction and overview of the USA’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) sponsored SAFER Guides (Safety Assurance Factors for Electronic Health Record Resilience) project presented by Hardeep Singh, MD, MPH and Dean F. Sittig, PhD.

Click Here to view the webinar.

Arthur Allen in Politico Morning eHealth: Software Act Could Create Safety Problems

Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association finds that the laboratory graphs displayed by many commercial electronic health records present information in potentially dangerous ways and could create serious safety problems. The authors urged ONC to stringently oversee testing of the software. Read the complete article: […]

Graphical Display of Diagnostic Test Results in EHRs: A Comparison of 8 Systems

Many current commercial EHRs have significant limitations in graphing capabilities of laboratory test results and often display results in nonstandardized fashion.

The SAFER guides: empowering organizations to improve the safety and effectiveness of electronic health records

With support from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), we used a rigorous, iterative process to develop a set of 9 self-assessment tools to optimize the safety and safe use of EHRs. These tools, referred to as the Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience (SAFER) guides, could be used to self-assess safety and effectiveness of EHR implementations, identify specific areas of vulnerability, and create solutions and culture change to mitigate risks.

SAFER Electronic Health Records: Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience

SAFER Electronic Health Records: Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience Electronic health records (EHRs) have the potential to improve the quality and safety of health care. Since the enactment of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), organizations are adopting EHRs at an unprecedented rate. While […]

Hardeep Singh, MD, MPH

Hardeep Singh, MD, MPH, is the Medical Director for CIRCLE, a general internist and patient safety researcher at the Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety based at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and an associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine. Much of his research […]