Abstract

The progress of information technology has impacted the healthcare sector. Some of these impacts are caused by adopting Electronic Health Records. One of the main goals of EHR is to support continuity, efficiency, and quality in healthcare. These systems can offer benefits, such as ease of access to patient data, research support, and greater completeness and documentation comprehensiveness. In addition, these systems have shown a capacity for reducing medical errors and increasing patient safety, mainly through decision-making support mechanisms.

Despite these benefits, the literature also presents evidence that EHR can incur risks to patient safety when developed and misused. Studies have also documented user dissatisfaction with current systems and usability problems. They have also created a host of new issues, including authorship attribution, data integrity, and regulatory concerns over billed services' accuracy and medical necessity. The predominant EHR-related safety concerns identified can help focus future safety assessment activities on prioritizing ongoing interventions for further research. 'Safe technology' and 'safe use of technology' are necessary for efforts to improve and monitor patient safety.