Institute of Medicine checklist offers guidelines for healthcare executives

Healthcare executives should have full understanding about the benefits of healthcare information technology as a means for improving outcomes and lowering costs, new guidelines recommend.

The Institute of Medicine, in collaboration with executives from 11 leading providers, developed a checklist offering strategies for cutting waste and improving patient care. In addition to outlining safeguards against medical errors, injuries and infections, the checklist emphasizes the use of IT to increase transparency on performance, outcomes and costs.

Executives from health systems including Geisinger, Kaiser Permanente, the Veterans Administration, the Cleveland Clinic and others contributed to the checklist.

“The prominent health executives behind the checklist, and others like them, are leading the way to superior care at reasonable costs,” IOM President Harvey Fineberg said in a statement.

Click here to read the full checklist.