Improving patient safety

With all the technology found in the modern hospital today, the lack of coordination between other parts of health care, the pharmaceutical industry, and the agencies is outdated. A network that connects these parts together will improve patient safety, improve care, speed the development of new treatments, and support new medical breakthroughs. 

Prevention of medication errors is the primary objective of the USP Medication Errors Reporting Program. It collects and analyzes potential and actual medication errors submitted by health care practitioners. The program affords health care professionals the opportunity to report medication errors and thereby contribute to improving patient safety by sharing their experiences. 

In March 2003, the Department of Health and Human Services announced two new FDA strategies that will use state-of-the-art technology to improve patient safety. 

Hansen LB, Fernald D, Akaya-Guerra R, et al. 2006. Pharmacy clarification of prescriptions ordered in primary care A report from the Applied Strategies for Improving Patient Safety (ASIPS) collaborative. J Am Board Fam Med 19 24-30. 

Lovern E. 2001. Minding hospitals business Purchasing coalition pushes hospitals to improve patient safety through process measures, but industry says standards are too expensive. Mod Healthcare 31 30. 

National Center for Patient Safety (NCPS). 2001b. Safety assessment code and triage card training CD-ROM. Strategies for Leadership A Toolkit for Improving Patient Safety. Washington, DC Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for Patient Safety... 

Nolan TW. 2000. System changes to improve patient safety Br Med/320 771. 

Reynolds B. 2007. PQA continues work of improving patient safety, care. Pharmacy Today. ne 40. 

SIG (prescription instructions), and RxNorm (standard name, dose, and form availability) were not considered ready for implementation because of numerous approaches used in these three areas across health information technology. Electronic prescribing is not required under MMA, but plans are to have it available should providers choose to use it. As standards are developed, the adoption of e-prescribing is expected to improve patient safety by reducing prescribing and dispensing errors (Agency for Healthcare Research Quality, 2007). 

Riskprevention/mModijication. Pharmacy managers may not be able to eliminate a risk, but they can take steps to minimize the likelihood of its occurrence. All pharmacies take steps to avoid medication dispensing errors. This commonly involves the development of policies and procedures to prevent errors and improve patient safety (see Chapters 7 and 30). 

Obtaining critical pro duct quality information while the product is still being manufactured can lead to improved patient safety as well as increased product quality. PAT can also help establish causal links between process variables and product performance. The key is to develop suitable methodologies specific to the manufacturing process and product. It is also important to develop validation strategies that allow for the incorporation of PAT. 

The Medication Error Reporting Program (MERP) is a voluntary program administered by the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) in conjxmction with the ISMP. This confidential reporting system improves patient safety by alerting practitioners and the industry to potential or actual problems. Practitioners are asked to report errors and near misses to this program so that others learn from errors and prevent similar errors in the future. 

Quality me a.t are merit and improvement requires developing and testing quality measures and investigating the best ways to collect, compare, and communicate these data so they are useful to decision makers. AHRQ s research emphasizes studies of the most effective ways to implement these measures and strategies in order to improve patient safety and healthcare quality. 

The edueation and dissemination of information is another primary objective of ISMP—Spain If everyone understands the nature and causes of medication errors, there is a much greater possibility of improving patient safety. In this sense, ISMP—Spain makes educational presentations and holds conferences at healthcare professional meetings to provide information about adverse drug events. ISMP—Spain also publishes opinion articles and practical articles in Spanish healthcare journals in an effort to broadly disseminate a culture of safety and error prevention. 

Error Reduction in Health Care A Systems Approach to Improving Patient Safety Spath, P.L., Ed. Jossey-Bass Publishers San Francisco, 2000. 

Simmons J C (2001). How root-cause analysis can improve patient safety. Qual Lett Healthcare Leaders 13 2-12. 

Health IT believes that the potential for health IT systems to dramatically improve patient safety is within our reach [40],... 

Banger A, Graber M. Recent evidence that health IT improves patient safety. 2015. 

Some of the benefits included improved patient safety, therefore... 

In this chapter, we review the achievements of healthcare robotics in recent decades. We first discuss robotic systems for surgical operations that improve patient safety. We then review physical therapy training/assistive robots for disabled and aging people. Here, we exclude prostheses, orthoses, and robotic transportation assistance devices owing to space limitations but these areas are also considered important in terms of robotics applications. Finally, we conclude the chapter by discussing challenges facing biomedical robotics. 

However, while the objective of the report, and the thrust of its recommendations, was to stimulate a national effort to improve patient safety, what initially grabbed public attention was the declaration that between 44 000 and 98 000 people die in US hospitals annually as a result of medical errors. 

Healthcare organizations and the professionals affiliated with them should make continually improved patient safety a declared and serious aim, by establishing patient safety programmes with defined executive responsibility. 

Figure 5.2 Framework for Safety Action and Information Feedback from Incident Reporting (SAIFIR) (Reproduced from Quality Safety in Health Care, J Benn, M Kontantji, L Wallace et al. "Feedback from incident reporting information and action to improve patient safety". 18, no. 1, [11-21], 2009, with permission from BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.).

Person United Limited Substandard and Errors (PULSE) - a non-profit organization working to improve patient safety and reduce the rate of medical errors using real life stories and experiences. Survivors of medical errors are encouraged to use their experience to educate the community and advocate for a safer healthcare system. 

Patterson, E.S., Cook, R.I. and Render, M.L. (2002) Improving patient safety hy identifying side effects from introducing bar coding in medication administration. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association., 9(5), 540-553. 

CULTURE ASSESSMENT A TOOL FOR IMPROVING PATIENT SAFETY IN HEALTHCARE... 

Nieva, V.F. and Sorra, J. (2003) Safety culture assessment a tool for improving patient safety in healthcare organizations. Quality and Safety in Health Care, 12(Suppl. II), iiI7-ii23. 

Senior leaders needed to become much more visible to front line staff in their efforts to improve patient safety. 

Berm, J., Burnett, S., Parand, A. et al. (2009b) Studying large-scale programmes to improve patient safety in whole care systems challenges for research. Social Science <3 Medicine, 69, 1767-1776. 

Eidesen, K., Sollid, S.M.J. Aven, (2008)T. Risk assessment in critical care medicine-atool to improve patient safety.Tb appear in Journal of Risk Research. 

Frankel, A., Gandhi, T.K. and Bates, D.W. 2003. Improving patient safety across a large integrated health care dehveiy system. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 15(suppl 1), 131-140. doi 10.1093/intqhc/mzg075. 

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