Search the hub
Showing results for tags 'Technology'.
Found 412 results
-
Content ArticleOnline reporting tools are a key component of professional accountability programmes as they allow hospital staff to report co-worker unprofessional behaviour. Ethos is a whole-of-hospital professional accountability programme that includes an online messaging system, which has now been implemented across multiple Australian hospitals. This study examined reported unprofessional behaviour that staff indicated created a risk to patient safety. It included 1310 Ethos submissions reporting co-worker unprofessional behaviour between 2017 and 2020 across eight Australian hospitals. The findings indicate that unprofessional behaviour was associated with risks to patient safety. Co-worker reports about unprofessional behaviour have significant value as they can be used by organisations to better understand how unprofessional behaviour can disrupt work practices and lead to risks to patient safety.
-
Content Article
NHS Digital: Clinical safety
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Digital health and care service provision
Clinical safety is about keeping patients safe. It applies not only to us in the NHS, or social care organisations, but to you when building healthcare software. The law requires you to ensure your software is clinically safe, which means minimising the potential for harm to patients. This page on the NHS Digital website explains what you need to know about clinical safety when building healthcare software. -
Content ArticleThe healthcare systems of nearly every country are straining to keep up with the demands placed on them by advances in both treatment and technology. In this article, Timothy Ferris explores ways in which technology can reduce the burden on already under-resourced healthcare workforces. Acknowledging the complexity of healthcare compared to other industries, and the highly professional nature of the workforce, he uses the concept of 'unit cost' to look at how the financial and time burden associated with healthcare interactions can be reduced.
-
Content ArticleDiagnostic error is largely discovered and evaluated through self-reporting and manual review, which is costly and not suitable for real-time intervention. AI presents new opportunities to use electronic health record data for automated detection of potential misdiagnosis, executed at scale and generalised across diseases. The authors of this study propose a new, automated approach to identifying diagnostic divergence considering both diagnosis and risk of mortality. The aim of this study was to identify cases of misdiagnosis of infectious disease in the emergency department by measuring the difference between predicted diagnosis and documented diagnosis, weighted by mortality. Two machine learning models were trained for prediction of infectious disease and mortality using the first 24 hours of data. Charts were manually reviewed by clinicians to determine whether there could have been a more correct or timely diagnosis.
-
News Article
Council warned over broken alarm after woman dies
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
An assistant coroner has warned an east London council more people may die if it does not take action, after a "frail lady who was prone to falls" died of hypothermia at her home. Anoush Summers, 77, died in hospital in January after a fall days earlier. In a prevention of future deaths report, external, assistant coroner Edwin Buckett said Ms Summers' inquest concluded "the absence of a working wrist alarm prevented her from being found sooner than she was and probably contributed to her death". Ms Summers lived alone but received help from two carers from Supreme Care Services, and she was visited twice a day. After falling at home on 11 January, she was found the next day at 09:00 GMT wearing her wrist alarm and was taken to hospital. She died of hypothermia at Homerton University Hospital on 14 January. The assistant coroner said among issues he identified in her case "giving rise to concern" were: Her wrist alarm had been reported as broken and not working on 6 January, but "this was not replaced or repaired by the company engaged by the local authority", which meant Ms Summers could not call for help as "it did not work" None of the carers who attended her home after the wrist alarm broke on 6 January "ensured that steps were taken to replace the alarm" or reported the matter to the local authority The last carer to see her, who visited on 11 January, "was not aware that the wrist alarm did not work as she had not read the care notes", and "no clear instruction was given" about the extent to which carers should read these notes "None of the carers had been given any training, instruction or guidance on the testing of wrist alarms to ensure they worked properly when attending" There was not a "clear system identified between the company providing carers and the local authority as to the duties and responsibilities of each in the reporting of faults with wrist alarms" Read full story Source: BBC News, 26 June 2024 -
Content ArticleIn the wake of reports linking IT flaws to deaths of patients and the recent cyber attack on pathology services in south east London, Chris Fleming in an article for Digital Health calls for radical change to make digital safer and more effective
-
Content ArticleThis increased implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare could be either great or terrible news for the safety of services, depending on how organisations develop and implement it. This blog, written by the Professional Record Standards Body in partnership with the user experience company HD Labs, looks at the safety risks associated with using AI in health and care and outlines how standards can help keep AI safe.
-
Content ArticleDavid Stockwell is Chief Medical Officer at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is also Chief Clinical Officer at Pascal Metrics, a federally listed Patient Safety Organisation working with the Betsy Lehman Center on a pilot to test the impact of automated safety event monitoring in a diverse set of six-to-eight acute care hospitals in Massachusetts. Stockwell talked with Patient Safety Beat about Pascal’s approach to using electronic data to transform safety.
-
EventuntilMedication errors are a leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in healthcare, with an estimated 1.3 million people impacted in the U.S. each year. Preventable medication errors cost the nation more than $21 billion annually across all care settings, representing a serious public health concern, as well as an economic burden on our healthcare system. Join AHRQ’s expert panel of speakers to hear how quality improvement approaches and digital healthcare interventions such as clinical decision support tools are reducing medication errors, improving provider effectiveness, and enhancing patient safety in a variety of clinical care settings. At the conclusion of this Webinar, participants should be able to: Discuss how an e-prescribing tool can reduce medication discrepancies and improve patient safety by enhancing communication between pharmacists and providers. Identify how clinical decision support systems can significantly reduce the prescribing of potentially inappropriate medications to older patients at the time of discharge from the emergency department setting. Explain how outcome measures, such as the Wrong-Patient Retract-and-Reorder measure, can be developed and used to detect medication errors in electronic orders. Register
-
Content ArticleUse of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare is on the rise. Bodies including UK Governments, the National Institute for Health and Care Research and the NHS AI Lab are all investing in developing and deploying the technology. The Patient Information Forum (PIF) is an independent UK membership body for people working in health information and support. Developed in collaboration with PIF’s AI working group, this position statement aims to help members understand the AI landscape and how to manage it.
-
Content Article
An investigation published by BBC News has revealed that Electronic patient record (EPR) system failures have been linked to the death of three patients and more than 100 instances of serious harm at NHS hospitals trusts in England. In this short blog, Patient Safety Learning reflects of these issues and the importance of patient safety being at the heart of the development and implementation of EPRs.- Posted
- 1 comment
-
8
-
- (and 1 more)
-
Content Article
Diabetes tech: Do national aspirations and local practice align?
Anonymous posted an article in Diabetes
In this anonymous blog, a person with type 1 diabetes describes their recent experience upgrading their insulin pump, a medical device used to continuously deliver insulin instead of taking multiple daily injections. They describe how communication issues and gaps in staff knowledge led to a significant delay in accessing the pump, which caused them significant stress. They also ask whether recent announcements about increased access to diabetes technology over the next few years will match up to the reality experienced by people with diabetes accessing care at local healthcare organisations. -
Content ArticleMore than four million people have type 2 diabetes in the UK and the use of new technologies is becoming essential for effective diabetes care and patient empowerment. This report by Public Policy Projects (PPP) highlights the benefits of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) for people with type 2 diabetes who use insulin, but finds that access remains limited due to stigma and financial barriers. The report contains findings that emerged during the second roundtable of PPP’s System-wide Strategies for Better Diabetes Care programme, which is designed to identify opportunities for improvements and transformation in diabetes care. The roundtable was attended by more than 30 sector leaders from primary and secondary care, pharmacy and integrated care system (ICS) and key industry representatives. The overarching theme was the opportunities and challenges brought by CGM technology to type 2 insulin users and other patient groups. The report finds that primary care staff are under-resourced to deal with the number of new guidelines published, and this is influencing willingness to adopt and push this technology. Also, financial constraints and stigma around the visibility of the sensor are slowing down the effective rollout of the technology across the UK.
-
News Article
Whole health system’s IT goes down
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
HSJ understands that IT systems across the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly ICS went down around midday, prompting the declaration of a major incident. In a statement, a spokesperson for the ICS said the incident was a “local issue” and not a “cyber attack”. As a result of the issue, some planned outpatient appointments, including operations, have been cancelled. The outage is also thought to have contributed to a large ambulance handover backlog. Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust, and University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, as well as GP surgeries and community providers, are understood to have been affected by the outage. Read full story (paywalled) Source: 11 June 2024 -
Content ArticleThe relentless increase in administrative responsibilities, amplified by electronic health record (EHR) systems, has diverted clinician attention from direct patient care, fuelling burnout. In response, large language models (LLMs) are being adopted to streamline clinical and administrative tasks. Notably, Epic is currently leveraging OpenAI's ChatGPT models, including GPT-4, for electronic messaging via online portals. The volume of patient portal messaging has escalated in the past 5–10 years, and general-purpose LLMs are being deployed to manage this burden. Their use in drafting responses to patient messages is one of the earliest applications of LLMs in EHRs. Previous works have evaluated the quality of LLMs responses to biomedical and clinical knowledge questions; however, the ability of LLMs to improve efficiency and reduce cognitive burden has not been established, and the effect of LLMs on clinical decision making is unknown. To begin to bridge this knowledge gap, the authors of this study, published in the Lancet, carried out a proof-of-concept end-user study assessing the effect and safety of LLM-assisted patient messaging.
-
Content ArticleThis study sought to understand the types of clinical processes, such as image and medication ordering, that are disrupted during electronic health record (EHR) downtime periods by analysing the narratives of patient safety event report data. Patient safety report data offer a lens into EHR downtime–related safety hazards. Important areas of risk during EHR downtime periods were patient identification and communication of clinical information; these should be a focus of downtime procedure planning to reduce safety hazards. The study concluded that EHR downtime events pose patient safety hazards, and the authors highlight critical areas for downtime procedure improvement.
-
Content Article
.jpg.6443187c6826ff4c46345499f65fccda.jpg)
In this blog, Laura Green, Consultant Haematologist at NHS Blood and Transplant and Barts Health NHS Trust, describes how a new electronic process to improve the safety of blood transfusions was implemented across all four Barts Health sites. She explains why the new system was needed, outlines the benefits for staff and patients and highlights the role of project governance and staff training in successful implementation. -
Content ArticleIntravenous drug administration has been associated with severe medication errors in hospitals. This narrative review and aimed to describe the recent evolution in research on systemic causes and defences in intravenous medication errors in hospitals. It highlights a growing interest in systems-based risk management for intravenous drug therapy and in introducing new technology, particularly smart infusion pumps and preparation systems, as systemic defences. The authors conclude that when introducing new technologies, prospective assessment and continuous monitoring of emerging safety risks should be conducted.
-
Content ArticleThis guide is for trusts who have an electronic patient record system (EPR) already in place and want to realise the transformational opportunities it presents. It focuses on the role of the board in leading these changes. In December 2022, NHS England estimated that over 85% of trusts in England had some form of EPR and set a target for EPRs to be implemented in at least 90% of trusts by December 2023. A well implemented and optimised EPR improves patient safety, staff satisfaction, patient flow and data quality. But this can only be achieved with continuous optimisation and investment. A poor EPR implementation, followed by a lack of investment in its ongoing development, can frustrate staff and create disillusionment. This in turn leads to poor usage and unsafe workarounds. In time this will negatively impact productivity and result in substandard data informing clinical decision making. If you are part of an integrated care system (ICS) looking to share or align EPRs across a number of organisations, this guide will also help you consider issues of convergence, scale and shared governance. It does not address procurement and implementation.
-
Content ArticleThe NHS is the world’s largest publicly funded health service. It is also the world’s largest repository of healthcare data, but these data are fragmented and underutilised. Making them accessible in one place would improve health and deliver wealth for the nation. This report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change proposes the creation of a National Data Trust (NDT)—an organisation which would be majority-owned and controlled by the government and the NHS, together with investment from industry partners. It would aim to connect NHS data, attract private investment in new medical discoveries and bring the economic benefits of health innovation to citizens. The authors believe the NDT would accelerate the NHS’s development of cutting-edge innovations, provide quicker access to these advancements at reduced costs and generate a new funding source for the healthcare system.
-
EventThis webinar for UK healthcare professionals will be delivered by DISN UK Group committee members. It will focus on using diabetes technology–insulin pumps, CGM, POCT–in the hospital. We will discuss and outline the newest JBDS technology guideline and provide the attendees with most up to date information regarding using diabetes technology when a person with diabetes is admitted to hospital. Educational outcomes – 3 points: Recognise different types of diabetes technology Use of diabetes technology in the different scenarios in inpatient setting Effective support for people with diabetes and use of diabetes technology when admitted to hospital Register for the webinar
-
Content ArticleSofia Mettler, MD, describes the day when the electronic medical records (EMR) system at her hospital failed and the impact this had on clinical decision making. She highlights that the downtime forced doctors across the hospital to speak with patients about their condition and symptoms, and to collaborate with the nurses who had been monitoring them all night. It also made her realise that the many test results she was used to referencing for every patient were not all necessary to make clinical decisions. She reflects, "The EMR downtime made me realise that while the system seems to make our clinical routine convenient, it may not result in increased efficiency or better patient care."
-
Content ArticleAcute inpatient mental health services report high levels of safety incidents. The application of patient safety theory has been sparse, particularly concerning interventions that proactively seek patient perspectives. This recently published NIHR report details research to explore safety on acute mental health wards from patient perspectives using real-time technology.
-
Content ArticleThe National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) report Improving Diagnosis in Health Care calls for healthcare professionals to engage patients in diagnostic decision making. Patient engagement refers to the concept of patients being actively involved in their healthcare, including but not limited to engaging with medical providers and the health system in diagnosis, treatment, and overall disease management decisions. The emergency department (ED) presents unique challenges to engage patients in the diagnostic process. Patients evaluated in the ED typically have no prior relationship with the care team. Engagement is further challenged in the unpredictable, chaotic environment where clinicians operate in time-constrained situations and care for multiple patients simultaneously. Finally, patients presenting to the ED may be critically ill, emotionally distressed, intoxicated, or otherwise unable to fully participate in their own care. Health information technology (IT) is increasingly used to promote patient engagement by enhancing patient-provider communication, ensuring shared decision making, and enabling positive behavioural changes. Health IT tools such as electronic patient portals, mobile text messaging, health apps, and recent advancements in virtual environments offer new opportunities for patient engagement in the ED. This Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) brief reviews the current state of health IT-based methods for engaging patients in the diagnostic process in the ED and outlines opportunities for further development.
-
Content ArticleIn this Forbes article, Robert Pearl MD looks at how AI will affect the legal situation when a patient is harmed in healthcare. He highlights growing confidence and an increasing body of research that points to generative AI being able to outperform medical professionals in various clinical tasks. However, he outlines many questions that still remain about the legal implications of using AI in healthcare. He also argues that liability will become increasingly complex, especially in places where AI is being used without direct individual oversight.
.jpg.6443187c6826ff4c46345499f65fccda.jpg)
