By Barbara Grijalva

It’s estimated hospital medical mistakes kill 100,000 people a year in the United States.

Many hospitals, including Tucson Medical Center are going high-tech to improve patient safety.

TMC is in the process of completing a state-of-the-art electronic medical records system, or EMR.

A hospital spokesman says when it’s completed in June of 2010, it will put TMC in the top five percent of U.S. hospitals in EMR technology.

“So the EMR is a mechanism to bring improved patient safety, efficiencies and just overall improvements in the clinical care process,” says TMC Chief Information Officer Frank Martini.

He says computers will be in every patient room and every other place where care is administered.

No more writing orders paper.

No more trying to decipher a doctor’s handwriting.

“It’s legible. It’s complete. The computer has smarts built in to examine that order and make some suggestions or recommendations if that order conflicts with something about that patient that the caregiver may not have been aware of,” Marini says.

Right now, they are loading information into the system and setting up procedures.

TMC will begin with, what pharmacists call, high alert drugs.

“Drugs that are considered more dangerous, like narcotics. Things that affect blood pressure, insulin, stuff like that…that if it was wrong could seriously impact somebody,” Blair says.

It’s designed to help everyone in the hospital, from caregivers to patients.

“I would hope that it would give them some piece of mind, knowing that, yes, there are people that are checking and everything, but there’s also something that is backing us up,” Blair says

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