Mostashari Assures Patient Safety Plan Sooner than 12 Months

Dr. Farzad Mostashari, the national health IT coordinator, said that agencies in the Health and Human Services Department will work closely to craft a surveillance and action plan to keep patients safer through health IT, and it will be done sooner than called for by the Institute of Medicine.

An IOM report published this week directed ONC as the office that oversees health IT to complete its plan within 12 months. “We appreciate the IOM’s recommendations in making sure that we really do have a coherent structure for reporting, analyzing and acting on the information about EHR-related safety incidents,” he said at the Nov. 9 meeting of the advisory Health IT Policy Committee.

He added that the committee will be an important part of bringing health IT stakeholders together for discussions about patient safety. The IOM calls for the freer flow of safety-related information and action by all stakeholders...