Affects providers across 22 states
UnitedHealth Group has voluntarily recalled its OptumInsight emergency department electronic health record software after a glitch resulted in physician notes failing to appear in the records.
Customers of OptumInsight’s Picis ED PulseCheck were notified of the issue, which is associated with prescription notes not showing up on the prescription or patient chart, back in June. The recall is affecting providers across 22 states.
Wakefield, Mass.-based Picis Inc., which was acquired by UnitedHealth Group in 2010, has already reported six EHR software related recalls since 2009, according to a Bloomberg report.
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The EHR glitch was eventually fixed after completing a routine software update, said UnitedHealth spokesperson Kyle Christensen in a statement. The update "resolved an issue in specific releases where some physician notes entered manually on a prescription were not included when the prescription was issued." No patient harm events were reported, Christensen added.
"It's admirable that the vendor reported this, but realize that this is one of the more obvious errors," said University of Pennsylvania adjunct professor of sociology and medicine Ross Koppel to Bloomberg. Koppel’s research is focused on errors in health information technology. "Most (errors) are not as obvious and go unreported," he added.
Currently, some 37 providers have attested to meaningful use with the Picis ED PulseCheck.
