Culture of Safety Assessment for Health IT

Organizations that develop electronic health records (EHRs) and other health IT leverage a foundational culture of safety to achieve the safe design, development, and implementation of health IT products.

To support this initiative, ECRI has created a tool that allows health IT developers to assess their organization’s safety culture. This online assessment tool—hosted on secure servers—is specialized for health IT vendors and developers, providing confidentiality for organizations and team members. Such confidentiality will enable collection and use of candid and actionable survey responses.

ECRI's experience with hospital surveys has shown that monitoring safety-related perceptions and experiences then comparing them drives outcomes and strengthens the focus on safety.

This tool will enable you to:

• Evaluate perceptions of safety issues across your teams and departments
• Assess the adoption of a shared safety responsibility
• Gauge the effectiveness of and needs for safety-related training
• Compare safety values across teams and product lines
• Contrast your results with similar organizations using de-identified comparative data (once enough organizations participate to enable valid comparisons and organizational confidentiality)
• Identify areas that may need greater attention

Sample questions include:

• Does senior leadership see health IT safety as a top organizational priority?
• Does the organization recognize its shared responsibility for health IT safety with its customers?
• Is the organization actively engaging users in usability and safety tests?
• Does the organization provide adequate, annual health IT safety training to all employees that includes how to identify, report, and address a safety issue?
• Is there collaboration with customers to create innovative solutions that improve patient safety?
• Are team members comfortable reporting health IT–related safety concerns?
• Does the organization have policies, practices, and procedures to prioritize safety?

Interested in learning more?
Contact us at 610.825.6000, ext. 5891 or e-mail clientservices@ecri.org.