Chasing high performance: best business practices for using health information technology to advance patient safety

The emergence of information technology in healthcare holds the promise to transform the industry through the creation of highly reliable information exchange. These same technologies have a central role in the patient safety movement. Organizations that wish to deliver safe and high-quality healthcare will only be successful if they plan, develop, and use health information systems with the principles of high-performing organizations in mind. We discuss the current state of health information technology in the patient safety movement, how this technology can contribute to high organizational performance, and some caveats.