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Survey Shows the Role of Technology in the Progress of Patient Safety

August 23, 2018

Article Summary


2018年对医疗专业人员的一项调查显示,缺乏有效的技术正在阻碍患者安全的进展。尽管大多数医疗保健组织声称安全是首要任务,但在对患者安全结果产生重大影响方面仍面临严峻挑战。

Survey respondents said ineffective information technology and the related lack of real-time warnings for possible harm events were the top barriers to improving patient safety. They cited a number of key obstacles:

1. Lack of resources.
2. Organization structure.
3. Lack of reimbursement for safety measures.
4. Changes in patient population.

This survey of more than 400 healthcare professionals tackles a big question many hospital leaders are asking: Why aren’t we seeing improvements in patient safety despite our efforts?

Technology & Patient Safety Survey infographic cover

Technology has become an integral part of healthcare, and as hospital systems work towardimproving patient safety, it’s more important than ever. Although the majority of healthcare organizations are focused on patient safety, the results of those efforts are yet to be seen. Better technology could be the key, according to aJune 2018 surveyby Health Catalyst.

Nearly nine out of 10 respondents to a national survey of physicians, nurses, and healthcare executives say their organizations are successfully improving the safety of patients.

但真正的问题仍然存在。健康催化剂调查的受访者说,为了进一步改进,他们需要更好的健康信息技术来警告临床医生即将到来的病人伤害,以及更多的资源世界杯葡萄牙vs加纳即时走地和更大的组织关注这个问题。

改进的需要是迫不得已的。Medical error is one ofthe leading causes of death in the U.S. While mortality grabs the headlines, non-lethal harm events are even more frequent, occurring at a rate 10 to 20 times higher than lethal events, according toThe Journal of Patient Safety. Researchers estimate that one in three hospitalized patients experience preventable harm and over 400,000 individuals die each year from these injuries.

Despite these statistics, confidence in current patient safety efforts is high, according to the online survey of 462 medical, quality, and pharmacy professionals in healthcare organizations of all sizes across the U.S. Seventy-nine percent of survey respondents rated their organizations’ success in improving patient safety as either “somewhat good” or “very good.” Only 11 percent rated their patient safety efforts as “poor,” however, just 9 percent gave their efforts an “excellent” grade.

Technology and Patient Safety: Barriers to Improvement

The survey confirms that serious challenges prevent healthcare organizations from making a significant dent in preventable errors, with 89 percent of respondents seeing room for improvement. However, they identified several key obstacles that prevent them from achieving their patient safety goals. These barriers are listed below in order of percentage:

  • Ineffective information technology and the related lack of real-time warnings for possible harm events (30 percent).
  • Lack of resources including staffing and budget (27 percent).
  • Organization structure, culture, or priorities (19 percent).
  • Lack of reimbursement for safety initiatives (10 percent).
  • Changes in patient population (9 percent).
  • Other (6 percent).

Over-Reliance on Voluntary, Manual Reporting

The lack of effective information technology tops the list of barriers to improving patient safety. This problem ties in closely with another survey finding—that healthcare organizations are almost completely dependent on manual methods of tracking and reporting safety events. According to the survey, the four most common sources of data used for patient safety initiatives are voluntary reporting (selected by 82 percent of respondents), hospital-acquired infection surveys (67 percent), manual audits (58 percent), and retrospective coding (29 percent). Nearly one-third of respondents (28 percent) reported also using trigger tools as a data source for patient safety, which could mean either the manual process of chart review that relies on Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) methodology, or home-grown reports that also follow the IHI methodology.

These standard approaches to manual reporting of hospital safety events have been shown to find less thanfive percent of all-cause harm. Manual reporting is based on data that is at least 30 days old, and it requires extensive time and resources for data extraction, aggregation, and reporting, resulting in limited root-cause analyses.

“As these survey results confirm, the current approach to using voluntary reporting to monitor patient safety gives healthcare organizations a false sense of tackling the ever-present danger of patient harm,” saidStanley Pestotnik, MS, RPh, Health Catalyst’s Vice President of Patient Safety Products and one of the foremost experts at the intersection of patient safety and harm-reduction technology. “Recent evidence continues to demonstrate that the majority of patient harm goes undetected and that medical injury is the third leading cause of death in the U.S.—evidence that challenges voluntary reporting as an effective patient safety management strategy.”

Regulatory Reporting Requirements Help

When asked to name factors that are most influential in driving their patient safety efforts, a majority of survey respondents (51 percent) named regulatory reporting requirements. In second place at 39 percent was financial considerations, such as malpractice claims, value-based contracts, and reduced reimbursement. Respondents cited additional factors:

  • Published accreditations and designations (34 percent).
  • Patient satisfaction scores (33 percent).
  • 数据驱动的组织优先级(29%)。
  • Performance against safety measures (27 percent).
  • Brand recognition, market competition (16 percent).
  • Stakeholder interests (11 percent).
  • 其他(5%)。

对大多数组织来说,确定病人改善工作的重点是一个困难的决定。当被要求确定患者安全最需要改进的领域时,调查受访者对六个选项中的四个进行了评分,每个评分相差不超过3个点。“住院临床”领域的重点,如住院时间、死亡率和再次入院以21.6%位居榜首,勉强领先于“手术”(21.1%),该领域包括ED等待时间和病人出院时的指示。根据受访者的说法,另外两个最需要改善的领域是“疾病严重程度”(19.5%)和“门诊/门诊”(18.6%)。只有“监管报告”(包括医院获得性疾病的报告)似乎比其他领域需要的改善略少,15.5%的受访者提到了这一问题。“Other” captured the remaining 3.7 percent of respondents.

“The big picture takeaway from this survey is that although a small portion of respondents felt they have a good handle on their patient safety efforts, the largest portion of respondents still believe that they have room for improvement,” saidValere Lemon, RN, MBA,他是健康催化剂公司的高级主题专家。世界杯葡萄牙vs加纳即时走地“监测全因伤害将有助于医疗保健组织弥补从专注于小众的改进到主动的伤害识别和更广泛的患者安全改善干预措施的差距。”

New Patient Safety Technology Introduced

2018年6月,Health世界杯葡萄牙vs加纳即时走地 Catalyst宣布发布患者安全监测™套件:监测模块,这是业界首个全面的患者安全应用,使用预测和文本分析,结合临床医生对数据的并发审查,在伤害发生之前监测、检测、预测和预防对患者安全的威胁。

The Surveillance Module quickly identifies patterns of harm and proposes strategies to eliminate patient safety risks and hazards for current and future patients. This potent combination of predictive analytics, text analytics, and near real-time data from multiple sources enables the Patient Safety Monitor Suite to predict harm events and trigger a response while the patient is still in the hospital.

Survey Methods

调查结果反映了2018年5月和6月进行的一项在线调查的462名医疗专业人员的意见。调查对象包括240名医生、99名护士(包括19名护士长)、38名药剂师、14名首席质量官或质量主管,以及一些其他角色。他们为各种组织工作,从一些国家最大的学术医疗中心到国家健康保险公司和独立的医生执业。

Additional Reading

Would you like to learn more about this topic? Here are some articles we suggest:

  1. How to Use Data to Improve Patient Safety
  2. Improving Patient Safety: Machine Learning Targets an Urgent Concern
  3. Introducing the Health Catalyst Monitor Patient Safety Suite: Surveillance Module

PowerPoint Slides

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Four Essential Ways Control Charts Guide Healthcare Improvement

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