PLYMOUTH MEETING, Massachusetts–ECRI has come out with its annual list of the worst health-related technology hazards and several related to homecare are at the forefront, led by the risks of artifical intelligence (AI)-enabled health tech.
The 2025 Top 10 Health Technology Hazards report identifies potential sources of danger involving the uses of medical devices and systems. As well as the risk of AI-enabled technology, it calls out unmet technology support needs for homecare patients (No. 2), vulnerable technology ventors and cybersecurity threats (No.3), substandard or fraudulent medical devices and supplies (No. 4) and fire risk around supplemental oxygen (No. 5).
Two potential hazards associated with infusion come in at No. 8 and 10 and skin injuries from medical adhesive is at No. 9.
ECRI, tktk, compiles the risk report based on input from engineers, scientists, clinicians and other patient safety analaysts. Data is drawn from incident investigation, ECRI lab testing, literature review and discussions with health care providers in the field.
The team called out AI in health care for potentially causing harm because of bias behind its training, data drift, hallucinations and also over-optimistic expectations.
"Placing too much trust in an AI model—and failing to appropriately scrutinize its output—may lead to inappropriate patient care decisions," the report reads. "AI offers tremendous potential value as an advanced tool to assist clinicians and health care staff, but only if human decision-making remains at the core of the care process."
The second-ranked threat called out homecare, saying that complex medical devices such as ventilators, infusion pumps and dialysis machines are increasingly used in the home, and patients dependent on them may not be trained or aware of how to manage them.
The safe and effective use of such devices requires adherence to key technology management practices. These include assessing device usability in the context of the user’s abilities, mitigating any physical or structural limitations in the intended area of use, supplying the appropriate accessories, and providing sufficient training for proper device operation and maintenance.
"Inattention to such practices can lead to events and errors going undetected, readings from the device being misinterpreted (creating either a false sense of security or unnecessary concern), or care delays and other harm from unresolved device malfunctions," the report said. "ECRI has encountered numerous examples of patient harm from improper setup of or lack of familiarity with medical devices used in the home setting—from a hospitalization precipitated by a switch to an unfamiliar infusion pump to a tragic fatality that occurred when a ventilator alarm failed to activate."
You can see the full list here.
