Pew Recommends Addition of Health IT Safety Requirements to Federal Hospital Regulations

The Pew Charitable Trusts wrote to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on July 10 proposing ways the agency could leverage its future hospital payment policies to encourage adoption of best practices that can reduce patient health risks associated with electronic health records (EHRs). Pew outlined 10 types of health IT safety measures that CMS could add to criteria used to award financial incentives to hospitals and other eligible providers. The letter also suggested that CMS collaborate with the nation’s largest accreditor of hospitals, The Joint Commission, to embed EHR safety best practices in the commission’s certification standards.