Increase in HAIs Attributed to COVID-19 Burden on Providers

The first rule of healthcare is, “Do no harm.” Healthcare providers live by that oath. But sometimes, despite providers’ best efforts, patients obtain hospital acquired infections (HAIs) while rece...

Masks in Schools? Findings of ECRI's Evidence-Based Assessment Report

Some 18 months after the COVID-19 pandemic altered daily life, it continues to influence how people in the U.S. and across the globe live, play, work, and educate children. COVID’s Delta variant, a...

Inadequate Maternal Health Care Results in 300,000 Preventable Deaths Annually

Giving birth is one of the most natural parts of life. But for too many women, giving birth can be dangerous, and lead to infections, illness, and even death. More than 300,000 women worldwide die ...

Evidence-Based Medicine: A Powerful Tool for Supporting Physician Engagement and Improving Value-Based Care Outcomes

Healthcare administrators, value analysis, and clinical leaders constantly strive for greater performance, better clinical outcomes, and higher physician engagement. But while the need to nurture a...

Vaccination: For Your Residents, Your Family, Your Friends, and Yourself

All who have cared for our nation’s older adults through the COVID-19 pandemic have given so much; the toll in lives lost, illness, and financial and economic impacts have been great for those we s...

Mandatory Staff Vaccinations: Short-Term Benefits vs. Potential Unintended Consequences

With several vaccines against COVID-19 already available through emergency use authorization (EUA), others potentially on the way, and a nationwide vaccination campaign to administer the vaccine to...

Technology’s Role in Safe Integration of Behavioral Health and Primary Care to Improve Patient Care

Integrated behavioral health and primary care (integration) has been identified as a promising approach to enhancing patient care delivery, safety and quality. Technology tools, including electron...

Patient Safety and Digital Health Tools: What Are Providers and Developers Focusing On at the End of 2020?

Patient safety remains, as it should, a priority for developers of and providers who use electronic health records (EHRs) and other health IT. For example, ECRI’s Partnership for Health IT Safety h...

ECRI Cautions against CMS Blanket Coverage for FDA-designated Breakthrough Devices

In September 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed a rule that would establish a Medicare coverage pathway to provide Medicare beneficiaries nationwide with faster access to...

Keep Healthcare Workers Safe to Improve Patient Safety

Healthcare workers face work-related risks, illnesses, and injuries, and patient safety is directly tied to worker safety. Creating a culture of safety is crucial. ECRI, and its affiliate, the Inst...

ECRI Stands for Senior Care

The stakes are high in medicine and healthcare – they pertain to life and death, as the current pandemic has reminded us on an hourly basis. This is especially true when it comes to those who care ...

ECRI Statement on Equitable Distribution of COVID-19 Vaccine

The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) just released a draft framework on equitable allocation of COVID-19 vaccine. The NASEM has published this publicly for review and...

How to Use Technology to Facilitate the Integration of Behavioral Health with Primary Care

An Inside Look into the Current Partnership Workgroup COVID-19 anxiety is increasingly part of our everyday lives. The resulting disruptions in daily routines can create or worsen anxiety and rais...

Using Technology to Facilitate the Integration of Behavioral Health with Primary Care: The Importance of Data Sharing

A Continuing Inside Look into the Partnership Workgroup on Optimizing Health IT for Safe Integration of Behavioral Health and Primary Care "Integration" of behavioral health and primary care is a p...

Taking a Stand against Racial Injustice

Tightly woven into ECRI’s DNA is the imperative to speak truth to power, based on facts and evidence. The facts are that for centuries in the United States, racism has caused historic and acute tr...

Reducing the Noise from Alerts, Alarms, and Notifications

When technology entered healthcare, so too did alerts. Alerts acted as attention grabbers, reminders, notices of changes in a patient's condition, and warnings about malfunctions or improper funct...

Healthcare Acquired Infection Risks from Worker Fingernails and Polish

Infection prevention is of vital concern right now, and reducing disease transmission between healthcare workers (HCWs) and patients is critical for patient safety.  One source of danger to patient...

Four Ways to Say No to Adverse Drug Reactions

The seeds of an adverse drug interaction can be planted at any point in the care process, by any of the individuals involved. For instance, take a look at these common scenarios: A clinician, over...

Rethinking Incident Investigations in Senior Care

Decisions made and actions taken in the first minutes and hours after an incident occurs in an aging services organization set the stage for everything else that follows. For instance, consider thi...

The EtO Sterilization Dilemma

Ethylene oxide (EtO) sterilization has been in the news a lot lately, and healthcare has much at stake. According to officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), approximately 56% of a...

Diagnosing Communication Gaps in Diagnostic Test Reporting

In the United States, there are 30 times more outpatient visits as hospital discharges. As a result of the high volumes and complexities inherent to ambulatory settings, one in twenty patients can ...