Managing the patient safety risks of bottom-up health information technology innovations: Recommendations for healthcare providers

Abstract

Health information technology (IT) offers exciting opportunities for providing novel services to patients, and for improving the quality and safety of care. Many healthcare professionals are already improving services through the development of numerous bottom-up local health IT innovations. Such innovations from the ground up are to be welcomed, but healthcare providers are struggling to develop processes for managing the risks that come with the introduction of health IT into clinical processes. I argue that too often the main strategy appears to be one of organisational ignorance. This puts patients at risk, and it threatens the successful adoption of health IT. I recommend that healthcare providers focus on strengthening their processes for organisational learning, promoting proactive risk management strategies, and making risk management decisions transparent and explicit.