Healthcare transitions often result in poor treatment outcomes, largely due to a lack of coordination. However, an upcoming conference in Washington, DC will seek to find ways emerging technology like electronic health records can address this problem.

The "Putting the IT in Transitions" conference will be held October 14 and feature speakers from some of the nation's leaders in health IT and care quality, including representatives of the Kaiser Permanente Foundation and the national coordinator for health IT Farzad Mostashari.

Lectures will delve into how technology like EHR systems can improve transitional care by managing the discharge process, coordinating patients' medication between multiple providers, organizing the flow of information and making sure that patients and caregivers know what to expect from the transition process.

Transitional care can include anything from moving a patient from a primary care setting to a specialist to simply transferring an individual from one hospital department to another. During these processes physicians may neglect to provide the new caretaker with all relevant information. This leads to frequent medical errors, which contribute to poor outcomes and higher costs.