Potential patient safety hazards may include:

• Medication dosing errors: When ordering a medication clinicians may enter the wrong dose, resulting in the patient receiving an over or under dose. 
• Confusing patient instructions: When clinicians are entering information for the patient to follow, the space and format may be limited, and this may result in confusing patient instructions. 
• Wrong imaging site errors: When ordering imaging tests, such as an X-ray, clinicians may enter the wrong side or body part to be imaged, resulting in unnecessary radiation to the patient.

Potential improvements can include:

• Data should be entered in a way that matches how clinicians think about the information being entered.

   

• Most computations should be done by the computer and verified by clinicians, in order to reduce cognitive burden and the likelihood of error.

   

• The data entry process should be forgiving of common mistakes like misspelling words.

Potential patient safety hazards may include:

• Wrong medication errors: Clinicians may select the wrong medication from a complex list that contains many irrelevant options, resulting in a patient receiving an incorrect medication. 
• Wrong patient errors: Clinicians may select the wrong patient from their list, resulting in any procedure, lab, or other order going to an unintended patient. 
• Diagnosis errors: Clinicians may not be able to see critical results that have come back from a lab test, resulting in the patient being misdiagnosed.

Potential patient safety hazards may include:

• Missed imaging tests: When clinicians have to place multiple orders at once (e.g., ordering an x-ray of the forearm and elbow), the clinician may miss one body part.

   

• Missed medications: When clinicians order medications to be given at a later date (e.g., pain medication after a patient has surgery), the EHR may place the order in an “inactive” state until the clinician manually activates it closer to the time the medication is needed.

   

• Missed nurse instructions: Physicians’ medication orders might include information about when to administer drugs in a special instructions field, but these details can be hidden in nurses’ view of the EHR. 

Potential improvements can include:

• Workflows should match how clinicians think about completing their work.

   

• Repetitive actions should be streamlined to reduce cognitive burden and the likelihood for error.

   

• Unnecessary tasks should be eliminated.