UnitedHealth recalls EHR software.

• Position: HR

One of the clear advantages of electronic health records (EHRs) is they help to eliminate some common medical mistakes. For example, a study published in the June 2013 Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association reported that more than 17 million medication mistakes are avoided in the United States each year because hospitals are using computerized systems for ordering prescription drugs, thereby reducing the risks resulting from sloppy handwriting and dangerous drug combinations.

But what if an error is caused by a software glitch?

The UnitedHealth Group Inc. recently recalled software used in hospital emergency departments in more than 20 states because certain versions failed to print information about medications and failed to add data to patients' charts. Such notes typically contain directions about diet and use; failure to include them could lead to serious injury or death.

This is not the first recall of Picis software (the software...