What one time were considered safe ...

What one time were considered safe places for patients (ie, health care facilities) have become potentially deadly. Despite increases in technology and medical knowledge, medical errors have become a major threat to patient safety. united of the key problems is that although a large amount of knowledge and information is available, manual, paper-based patient charts can hamper distribution and communication of important patient information. The answer to this question may already be in the grasp of health care professionals, because information technology could be the fundamental note to minimizing medical errors and maximizing patient-centered care.

A NATIONAL CONCERN

united of the first principles of health care is to do no harm; however, in today's health care environment, patients are being harmed. According to reports according to The Rand Foundation, the US health care plan is "substandard," and medical errors are widespread. (1) In November 1999 the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued To mistake is Human: Building a Safer Health regularity a report that says an estimated 44000 to 98000 deaths in US hospitals each year are caused on medical errors, which makes medical errors a leading cause of death in the United States. (2) The report also notes that these deaths take away from approximately $8 million annually. (2)

The National Committee forward Vital and Health Statistics reports that united in 25 hospital admissions terminates in an injured patient. (3) In addition, approximately 180000 unnecessary deaths and 13 million injuries meet the eye from medical treatment in the United States. (3)

The IOM's other report, Crossing, the Quality Chasm: A recently made known Health System for the 21st hundred describes a medical system in which physician clusters hospitals, and other organizations operate as separate entities, ofttimes without the benefit of out and out information about a patient's condition, medical history, services provided in other settings, or medications prescribed on other physicians. (4) According to the report, the solution for safer, quality patient care is a total redesign of care a whole s including the use of information technology to support clinical and administrative processes

In July 2002 the Joint Commission onward Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) issued six national patient safety goals that focus in succession a recommended series of actions to stop medical mistakes. (5) In July 2003 JCAHO updated the patient safety goals and added united for a total of seven goals. (6) The first six recommendations became effective Jan 1 2003 and the revised goals became effective Jan 1 2004 Organizations that want to retain JCAHO accreditation are required to suffer that they are focused upon avoiding confusion in identifying patients, miscommunication among caregivers, bad site surgery, unsafe use of infusion cross-examines medication mix-ups, problems with equipment alarm a whole s and the risk of health care-acquired infections.

The national patient safety goals include 13 required actions for all JCAHO-accredited organizations. near of the expected actions include

* making permanent medicines are being given to the right patient before they are administered (eg using a chamber number to identify a patient is not sufficient);

* reading back medical orders given via the telephone to abridge the likelihood of miscommunication or misunderstanding;

* standardizing abbreviations or representatives used in providing care;

* removing from patient care units certain concentrated medications that, if administered accidentally, can be deadly;

* marking the site where surgery is to be performed (eg the left foot) and involving the patient in the process--this shapes the risk that surgery will be performed accidentally upon the wrong site;

* testing clinical alarm classifications and ensuring they can be heard at a distance and above the din of background noise; and

* ensuring that all IV infusion cross-examines have free-flow protection to make the risk of patients inadvertently receiving medication overdoses. (5)

TECHNOLOGY AS A SOLUTION

According to the IOM reports, the decrease in patient safety conclusions from the number of avoidable mistakes that can be derived in injury and death. Scientific and technological advances are occurring at an exponential rate, beyond what the human mind can comprehend and retain. (4) Medical knowledge also is growing at an exponential rate. principally clinicians are not humanly capable of staying popular with all the advances.

The national nursing shortage also is an obvious contributing factor. A large percentage of nursing time is exhausted on nonclinical tasks, such as scheduling, documenting, and communicating with other departments. (7) As the sphere of nursing responsibility increases, time devot to patient care and ensuring patient safety naturally decreases. Many promotes are spending a portion of their nonclinical time dealing with nonpatient issues, of the like kind as supply management.

The IOM also blames outdated and inefficient processe and steps (4) Organizations must review their rife systems closely, identify related question at issues and then take steps to improve or change these hypothesiss to ensure optimal patient safety. the same possible way to improve patient care is to have quick, accurate access to pertinent patient data and the ability to evolve reports and cross comparisons to solicit out best practices and proces improvements.