Survey examines effect of EHR outages on patient safety

Editor's Note

A survey by SERMO (a global social network for physicians) of 3,086 physicians from 26 countries found that 46% have witnessed an EHR malfunction or outage that endangered a patient’s health or safety, according to the April 24 Becker’s Health IT & CIO Review.

A total of 55% of physicians in the US said they experienced such an incident, followed by 46% in Canada and the UK, and 39% in France. Germany had the fewest at 9%.

Forty-six percent of physicians across the globe have witnessed an EHR malfunction jeopardize patient safety, according to a SERMO survey. SERMO, a global social network for physicians, asked 3,086 physicians from 26 countries to answer one question: Has an EMR/EHR outage or malfunction ever jeopardized the health or safety of a patient?