A Brief Primer on Health IT Problems

I have noted that numerous policy makers I've spoken with freely admit their knowledge of healthcare IT is zero, or limited to what they've seen and heard in the press (i.e., mainly marketing messages in disguise).

Since most of these officials have little time to study the issues about health IT in depth, I've created a zipped archive of four articles I consider key. The articles can serve as a primer on health IT problems:

1. Joint Commission Health IT Sentinel Events Alert, 2009.

2. FDA Internal Report on Adverse Events Involving Health IT. ("Not intended for public use" - but obtained by the press last year, presumably via FOIA), 2010.

3. ECRI Institute Top 10 Health Technology Hazards of 2011 - see hazard #5.

4. Hoffman/Podgurski, Case Western Reserve School of Law: E-HEALTH HAZARDS: PROVIDER LIABILITY AND ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORD SYSTEMS - comprehensive article, one of a series, 2009.

The zipped file can be downloaded from here:

http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/HIT_issues_Primer.zip

It is 2.7 Mb in length.

(A compilation of over fifty articles is at http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/HITreadinglist.doc, for those with lots of time.)

-- SS