Opportunities and Challenges

Medicines, vaccines, medical devices, and blood products are central to the quality of health care delivery and account for an increasing portion of every medical dollar spent.^{14, 15} Efforts to ensure the safe use of these products are an important component in improving the overall quality of health care. Several medical product safety objectives focus on the development and use of technologies in the health care system to enhance patient safety. Meeting these objectives and continued progress in this area will require additional investments in the private sector and strengthened private-public partnerships.³

Three Institute of Medicine reports focusing on the role of health care informatics and information infrastructure in preventing medication errors and adverse events have been issued over the past decade: To Err Is Human—Building a Safer Health System,¹⁶ Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century,¹⁷ and Preventing Medication Errors. The reports highlight the need to improve the communication of essential information to health care providers and consumers. Having health care informatic systems in place can facilitate the delivery of quality health care and improve patient awareness.¹⁶ Developing common data standards and investing in the development, testing, and implementation of the infrastructure needed to support electronic medical records and computerized order entry will continue to present both challenges and opportunities.

However, the contributions of electronic systems to product safety are limited. Effective interactions and communication between health care providers and patients remain essential to the safe and effective use of medical products. Environments that encourage and sustain personal interactions between health care providers and patients are critical to continued improvements in medical product safety.

<< Previous—Progress Toward Healthy People 2010 Targets  |  Table of Contents |  Next—Emerging Issues >>