Identifying Patient Safety Struggles & Solution

Nationwide Struggles With Patient Safety

Even before COVID-19, healthcare facilities have long struggled to consistently reduce patient safety issues:

1. In 2018, HACs were the 3^rd leading cause of death in the United States of America.
2. HACs have cost over $17 Billion to the healthcare industry.
3. ¼ of patients will experience an HAC during their visit to a hospital.
4. The Joint Commission reports a 19% increase in Sentinel Events* in 2022.

The Root Cause of Patient Safety Struggles

“We have seen many valiant efforts to reduce the problem,” President & CEO of the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative, Karen Wolk Feinstein PhD, has commented. “But most of these have relied on the frontline workforce to do the work or take extraordinary precautions.”

It’s become obvious that changes need to be made to find a solution to the ongoing crisis. “New attention is being paid to longstanding patient safety challenges, but substantial progress requires the creation of a national home for patient safety to promote substantive solutions, including those that deploy modern technologies to make safety as autonomous as possible,” Feinstein elaborated.

What Modern Technologies?

By utilizing the latest in healthcare IT rounding platforms, facilities can see drastic improvements in the quality of care provided to their patients.

1. Comprehensive Rounding Platform

Comprehensive Rounding is a powerful tool that is designed specifically to improve quality, safety, and patient experience within hospitals. Using a technology solution that unites all rounds within one platform allows healthcare leaders to gather, view, and draw conclusions from the combined data gathered.

• Environment of Care
• Fall Prevention
• Ligature
• Leader Rounding (patient or staff)
• Post-Discharge Calls
• Hourly Rounding
• Bedside Shift Change Audit
• CAUTI Prevention
• CLABSI prevention
• Med Management
• Tracers
• Life Safety
• And more

Above all, technology should effortlessly fit daily workflows, make caregivers and facility staff lives easier, incorporate workflow automation to ensure no issues goes unresolved, and provide data and analytics to allow healthcare leaders to accomplish its goals for a safe patient experience. 

2. AI Solutions

Relying on machine learning and automation, Automated Deficiency Ticket Routing removes the need for team members to manually communicate action items that need to be completed. Instead, these systems send action items to the responsible party and ensure its completion. Broadscale issue resolution is simplified across all disciplines, automatically routing deficiencies, incidents, complaints, grievances, occurrences to the correct staff member in real time or creating tickets within existing systems for ease of use and reduced time lapse.

3. Detailed Reporting/Data

Real-time data for tracking/trending helps your organization devise strategies for healthcare enhancements. Technology solutions drill into data and allow users to recognize patterns. Being able to analyze patterns provides continuous learning for process improvement to enhance safety practices, recognize warning signs if any lapse in care starts to occur, and provides team members a better understanding of the issues and their role in avoiding them.

4. Simple Integration/Easy-To-Use

Technology can work wonders for a healthcare facility but will struggle to receive buy-in from team members if it’s too complicated or creates turmoil in daily workflows. Any technology implemented should be user-friendly and allow frontline workers and support teams to utilize the technology without inhibiting their daily tasks. If it fails to be either of those things, team members will never fully embrace it and its full potential will never be realized.

Conclusion

Patient Safety has consistently been the most important factor in providing quality care within healthcare facilities. With technological advances, today’s healthcare leaders have new ways to improve the healthcare experience for both patients and staff. It’s time to move towards an era of innovation to help caregivers deliver the safest healthcare experience for every patient they serve.

Note:                                                                                                                                                                                      The Joint Commission defines a sentinel event as a patient safety event (not primarily related to the natural course of the patient’s illness or underlying condition) that reaches a patient and results in death, permanent harm, or severe harm.