Search the hub
Showing results for tags 'Data'.
Found 591 results
-
Content ArticleRather than measuring how safe care is, the focus is often on measuring levels of harm in healthcare systems. This report by Healthcare Excellence Canada outlines findings from a research study which aimed to answer, “How safe is care from the perspective of patients, families, care partners, and care providers?” Through a literature review, interviews, focus groups and a World Café wthe study aimed to increase understanding of how patients and their care partners view safety. The Measuring and Monitoring of Safety Framework (MMSF) (Vincent et al., 2013b) was used to guide the study. The MMSF offers a broader, more comprehensive and real-time view of patient safety and helps shift away from a focus on past cases of harm towards current performance, future risks and organisational resilience. The report concludes that the MMSF represents a critical shift in how patients can enable safer care. Inviting patients and care partners to contribute meaningfully to safety will enhance healthcare providers’ view of harm and understanding of what it means to feel safe.
-
Content ArticleLast year, a report from the Health Foundation looked at quality measurement—including patient experience—across a range of healthcare services. It described a “measurement maze”, with multiple sources and numerous national bodies presiding over data collection. The potential usefulness of the data for trusts was “limited by the data being hard to locate online, with multiple spreadsheets to choose from and large Excel workbooks to download and navigate.” The Patient Experience Library wanted to find a solution to this, to find a way to organise all the data such that every Trust could get one-click access to everything it might need.. Miles Sibley, Director of the Patient Experience Library, explains what they did.
-
Content ArticleThere was a national roll out of ‘COVID Virtual Wards’ (CVW) during England's second COVID-19 wave (Autumn 2020 – Spring 2021). These services used remote pulse oximetry monitoring for COVID-19 patients following discharge from hospital. A key aim was to enable rapid detection of patient deterioration. It was anticipated that the services would support early discharge, reducing pressure on beds. This study from Georghiou et al. evaluated the impact of the CVW services on hospital activity. The study found no evidence of early discharges or changes in readmissions associated with the roll out of COVID Virtual Wards across England.
-
Content ArticleIn this guest blog for the Professional Records Standards Body (PRSB), Taffy Gatawa, Chief Information and Compliance Officer at everyLIFE Technologies, talks about the importance of ensuring that healthcare technologies comply with recognised standards. She discusses everyLIFE's experience on PRSB’s Standards Partnership Scheme, and their journey to implementing standards in their digital products. Taffy describes a process of learning and feedback, achieved through desktop research, clinical reviews and critical engagement with PRSB and customers.
-
Content ArticleThe number of cyberattacks and information system breaches in healthcare has grown steadily, escalating from isolated incidents to widespread targeted and malicious attacks. In 2022, 707 data breeches occurred in the US, exposing more than 51.9 million patient records, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). To help healthcare organisations address this growing patient safety concern, The Joint Commission has issued this Sentinel Event Alert that focuses on risks associated with cyberattacks and provides recommendations on how healthcare organizations can prepare to deliver safe patient care in the event of a cyberattack.
-
Content ArticleThis study in the British Journal of General Practice aimed to examine trends in prescribing for anxiety in UK primary care between 2003 and 2018. Anxiolytic drugs are a group of medications used to relieve anxiety. The authors analysed data from 2.5 million adults to determine prevalence, incidence rates and treatment duration for prescriptions of any anxiolytic, and also for each drug class. The authors found that, between 2003 and 2018: prevalence of any anxiolytic prescription increased, driven by increases in those starting treatment, rather than more long-term use. incident beta-blocker prescribing increased over the 16 years, whereas incident benzodiazepine prescriptions decreased. long-term prescribing of benzodiazepines declined, yet 44% of prescriptions in 2017 were longer than the recommended four weeks. incident prescriptions in each drug class have risen substantially in young adults in recent years. They conclude that increases in incident prescribing may reflect better detection of anxiety or increasing acceptability of medication. However, they also caution that prescribing approaches may cause unintended harm, as some prescribing is not based on robust evidence of effectiveness and may contradict guidelines. They highlight that there is limited evidence on the overall impact of taking antidepressants long term.
-
Content ArticleThe cornerstone of good general practice has long been recognised as lying in the quality of the relationship between doctor and patient. This focus on the interaction between GP and patient has been further reinforced in recent years by increasing attention on the patient’s experience of healthcare encounters. However, pleasing the patient is not always consistent with providing good-quality care. GPs are well aware that patients may demand an antibiotic when it is not judged clinically appropriate. The aim of this study from Ashworth et al. was to determine the relationship between antibiotic prescribing in general practice and reported patient satisfaction. The results found that patients were less satisfied in practices with frugal antibiotic prescribing. A cautious approach to antibiotic prescribing may require a trade-off in terms of patient satisfaction.
-
Content ArticleThe General Practice Data Trust (GPDT) Pilot Study: Report on Patient Focus Groups reports on patients’ attitudes about sharing their health data for research and planning purposes. It is the result of research by academics at the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy (CSEP) at the University of Manchester, supported by the Patients Association, and is part of the GP Data Trusts pilot project. Funded by the Data Trusts Initiative, the project wanted to understand why so many people opted out from NHS Digital’s GP Data for Research and Planning (GPDPR) programme when it was launched in 2021. The research found that patients mostly supported the use of patient data in health research, but they often didn’t like the idea that companies might make money from the use of their health data. Many felt they had not been given enough information about the GPDPR programme; some would have been happy to share their data if they had known more about the programme. The researchers also asked focus group participants if holding patient data in a trust would reassure them about how their data are used. This was welcomed and the report goes into more detail about what patients thought of this idea.
-
Content ArticleThis webinar hosted by the Patients Association looked at the benefits to patients of accessing their GP health records online, and answered questions from patients about how to access this information.
-
Content ArticleThis International Patient Summary roadmap (G7-IPS) supports the G7 commitment to deliver on the rights of patients to have access to their health information, and through using open and interoperable standards it enables this information to be used at the point of treatment or care. The roadmap outlines the component parts required for implementation and the standards which will be used to ensure alignment and interoperability across the G7 community. Although developed by the G7 countries, other countries, should they wish to, will be able to adopt the same principles and use the open and interoperable resources.
-
Content ArticleThis article published by the Betsy Lehman Center looks at the benefits of real-time monitoring of electronic health records (EHRs). Early adopter hospitals have demonstrated dramatic gains in safety by monitoring patients' EHR's in real time for signals of potential safety events, allowing providers to more quickly and effectively address safety gaps and improve outcomes. This monitoring is carried out by automated safety surveillance software that continuously runs in the background of EHR systems and can detect hundreds of categories of adverse events as they occur. Expert analysis then quickly helps organisations gain insight from the data, which can be used to proactively reduce safety risks and reliably measure incidence of harm over time.
-
Content ArticleMaking data on medical interventions easier to collect and collate would increase the odds of spotting patterns of harm, according to the panel of a recent HSJ webinar. When Baroness Julia Cumberlege was asked to review the avoidable harm caused by two medicines and one medical device, she encountered no shortage of data. “We found that the NHS is awash with data, but it’s very fractured,” says Baroness Cumberlege, who chaired the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review and now co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group which raises awareness of and support for its findings. It was a challenge on which Professor Sir Terence Stephenson had cause to deeply reflect back in 2014. That was the year in which he was asked to chair an independent review of medical devices, following concerns about the safety of metal-on-metal hip replacements and PIP silicone breast implants. “The NHS stepped up to the plate really quickly and said: ‘Even if it’s a private hospital that put this in, we will take it out to protect your safety,’” recalled Sir Terence, now Nuffield professor of child health at Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and chair of the Health Research Authority for England. “But the big problem was they couldn’t identify who had which implants. No doubt somebody somewhere had written this down with a fountain pen and then someone spilt the tea over it and the unique information was lost.”
-
Content ArticleThis mixed method case study in The BMJ aimed to evaluate a national programme to develop and implement centrally stored electronic summaries of patients’ medical records. The authors found that creating individual summary care records (SCRs) was a complex, technically challenging and labour intensive process that occurred more slowly than planned. They concluded that complex interdependencies, tensions and high implementation workload should be expected when rolling out SCRs.
-
Content ArticleA study from Jackson et al. looked at how the prevalence of psychological distress in the adult population of England has changed since 2020. The study found that the proportion reporting any psychological distress was similar in December 2022 to that in April 2020 (an extremely difficult and uncertain moment of the COVID-19 pandemic), but the proportion reporting severe distress was 46% higher. These findings provide evidence of a growing mental health crisis in England and underscore an urgent need to address its cause and to adequately fund mental health services.
-
Content ArticleThis Mental State of the World report from Sapien Labs provides insight into the mental wellbeing of populations around the globe in 2022 across 64 countries in the Core Anglosphere, continental Europe, Latin America, the Arab world, South and South East Asia and Africa based on responses to the Mental Health Quotient (MHQ) assessment in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Portuguese (European and Brazilian), German, Swahili and Hindi. The assessment provides an aggregate metric of mental wellbeing (the MHQ) as well as multiple dimensional views.
-
Content Article
The dangerous practice of sending people with a mental illness hundreds of miles away from home for weeks at a time continues in England, according to new analysis published by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Despite Government pledges to end the shameful practice, known as inappropriate out of area placements, by March 2021, almost 206,000 days have been spent by patients out of area in the 12 months since the deadline passed. Being far away from home, with friends and family not being able to visit, can leave patients feeling extremely isolated and emotionally distressed with devastating, long-lasting consequences for their mental health. Not only that, but it comes at a huge cost to the NHS. The health service spent £102 million on inappropriate out of area placements last year – the equivalent to the cost of the annual salary of over 900 consultant psychiatrists. The Royal College of Psychiatrists is calling on the NHS to adopt a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to inappropriate out of area placements and to take urgent action to ensure all patients get the care they need from properly staffed, specialist services in their local area.
