ABSTRACT
Electronic health records (EHRs) play a critical role in patient safety in hospitals and clinics. Less familiar is the role personal health information technology tools linked to a physician’s practice play in enhancing risk management and patient safety in medical care. A physician sees a new patient, an elderly man with a history of migraines, who is now having a terrible time with frequent episodes. He is taking only an over-thecounter migraine medication. The portable record still has the risk of being a static document; it is only a snapshot of one point in time in the record and can still be out of date. New patients also could bring in printouts from their previous provider, but it can be harder to find relevant data in a pile of papers. Errors in the medical record can include the wrong patient’s data, errors in history-taking, misunderstandings between patient and doctor, and outdated medication lists.
