Electronic health records (EHRs) fall short in preventing errors. EHRs miss up to 34% of potential medication errors, according to a study of EHR performance in the May 1 JAMA Network Open. The EHR systems were evaluated using test scenarios from actual patients who were injured or died from a medication error in 2,314 U.S. hospitals from 2009 to 2018. After entering the simulated patients into the EHR as hospital admissions, hospital representatives entered orders that should have triggered alerts or a soft or hard stop. The average safety test score in 2018 was 65.6%. While this is a modest increase from the 2009 score of 53.9%, the failure rate is alarming-and according to some commentators, unacceptable-for software that is supposed to prevent injury and death. The researchers note that how EHR systems are customized and used may ultimately be the determining factor for how safely they perform.