According to the Journal of Patient Safety, more than 300,000 people enter the hospital each year and never leave due to preventable medical errors, making medical errors the third leading cause of death (James, 2013 ). Ineffective communication tools such as written medical records and written prescriptions could be the main causes of these medical errors. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimates that medical errors alone cost the United States more than $37 billion each year (2008). Implementing electronic health records (EHRs) could significantly reduce the number of medical errors found in hospitals today, as well as decrease the costs hospitals incur from such errors. There is an international consensus on the fact that approximately 10% of hospitalized patients suffer from the damage caused by medical interventions, of which approximately half are preventable (Flotta, Rizza, Bianco, Pileggi, & Pavia, 2012). ABC News reported that Tesome Sampson was hospitalized. Her doctor ordered strict bed rest and progesterone suppositories to avoid premature results. He mistakenly gave her the drug Prostin, which is commonly given to expel a fetus following a miscarriage from the uterus. Sampson went into labor following administration of the drug. After four hours of abdominal cramps she gave birth to her daughter in the hospital toilet after nurses insisted she "just needed to have a bowel movement". Sampson was only 5 1/2 months pregnant. Unfortunately staff were unable to spot this error even though a similar incident had happened just hours earlier when the same drug had been mistakenly given to another pregnant mother who later gave birth to unborn twins (Patel, 2009). Unfortunately, this type of medical error is too common and… half of paper… published May 26, 2014, from http://cms.hhs.gov/Medicare/E-Health/EHealthRecords /index.htmlJames, J . (September 2013). A new evidence-based estimate of patient harms associated with hospital care. Journal of Patient Safety, 9, 122-128. Retrieved May 17, 2014, from http://journals.lww.com/journalpatientsafety/Fulltext/2013/09000/A_New,_Evidence_ based_Estimate_of_Patient_Harms.2.aspxPatel, A. (2009). Tragic medication errors lead to accidental miscarriages and premature births. ABC News. Retrieved May 19, 2014, from http://abcnewsgo.com/Blotter/story?id=8383062Valiee, S., Peyrovi, H., Nasrabadi, A. (2014). Intensive care nurses' perception of nursing error and its causes: a qualitative study. Contemporary nursing: a journal for the Australian nursing profession, 46(2), 206-213. doi:10.571/con.2014.46.2.206