Patient Safety and Proactive Risk Assessment

2016 ◽  
pp. 165-180
2021 ◽  
pp. 353-363
Author(s):  
Ciarán D. McInerney ◽  
Beverly C. Scott ◽  
Owen A. Johnson

PURPOSE Informatics solutions to early diagnosis of cancer in primary care are increasingly prevalent, but it is not clear whether existing and planned standards and regulations sufficiently address patients' safety nor whether these standards are fit for purpose. We use a patient safety perspective to reflect on the development of a computerized cancer risk assessment tool embedded within a UK primary care electronic health record system. METHODS We developed a computerized version of the CAncer Prevention in ExetER studies risk assessment tool, in compliance with the European Union's Medical Device Regulations. The process of building this tool afforded an opportunity to reflect on clinical concerns and whether current regulations for medical devices are fit for purpose. We identified concerns for patient safety and developed nine practical recommendations to mitigate these concerns. RESULTS We noted that medical device regulations (1) were initially created for hardware devices rather than software, (2) offer one-shot approval rather than supporting iterative innovation and learning, (3) are biased toward loss-transfer approaches that attempt to manage the fallout of harm instead of mitigating hazards becoming harmful, and (4) are biased toward known hazards, despite unknown hazards being an expected consequence of health care as a complex adaptive system. Our nine recommendations focus on embedding less-reductionist and stronger system perspectives into regulations and standards. CONCLUSION Our intention is to share our experience to support research-led collaborative development of health informatics solutions in cancer. We argue that regulations in the European Union do not sufficiently address the complexity of healthcare information systems with consequences for patient safety. Future standards and regulations should continue to follow a system-based approach to risk, safety, and accident avoidance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 770-785
Author(s):  
Hossam Elamir

Purpose The growing importance of risk management programmes and practices in different industries has given rise to a new risk management approach, i.e. enterprise risk management. The purpose of this paper is to better understand the necessity, benefit, approaches and methodologies of managing risks in healthcare. It compares and contrasts between the traditional and enterprise risk management approaches within the healthcare context. In addition, it introduces bow tie methodology, a prospective risk assessment tool proposed by the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management as a visual risk management tool used in enterprise risk management. Design/methodology/approach This is a critical review of published literature on the topics of governance, patient safety, risk management, enterprise risk management and bow tie, which aims to draw a link between them and find the benefits behind their adoption. Findings Enterprise risk management is a generic holistic approach that extends the benefits of risk management programme beyond the traditional insurable hazards and/or losses. In addition, the bow tie methodology is a barrier-based risk analysis and management tool used in enterprise risk management for critical events related to the relevant day-to-day operations. It is a visual risk assessment tool which is used in many higher reliability industries. Nevertheless, enterprise risk management and bow ties are reported with limited use in healthcare. Originality/value The paper suggests the applicability and usefulness of enterprise risk management to healthcare, and proposes the bow tie methodology as a proactive barrier-based risk management tool valid for enterprise risk management implementation in healthcare.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaurav Sharma ◽  
Anuj Dixit ◽  
Swapnil Awasthi ◽  
Garima Sharma

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maygala A ◽  
Primuhasa Putra SHA ◽  
Aziz AR ◽  
Ainol MR ◽  
Zainah J ◽  
...  

Introduction: Falls may result in injuries, prolonged hospitalization, increase in morbidity and mortality, incur cost to the individual and the healthcare system and increase potential litigation. Various hospital fall prevention programs such as Morse Fall Scale Assessment Tool have been implemented in the last decade; however most of the program had no sustained effects on falls reduction over extended period of time. Benchmarking from private hospitals showed patients fall increased by 27% in 2008 as compared to 2007 (MPC report, 2008). There were 25 cases of falls in 2008 at KPJ Seremban Specialist Hospital. The objective of this program is to comply with The Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goals 9, “reduce the risk of patient harm resulting from falls” and to formulate evidence based best clinical practice recommendations on assessment and prevention of falls in the hospital for all inpatients, outpatients, customers and staffs within hospital premises. Materials and Methods: Contributing factors were identified based on the retrospective analysis of falls from 1st.January 2008 to 30th September 2008. A fall risk assessment tool identified as KPJ FRAT (KPJ Fall Risk Assessment Tool) for inpatient was developed and various other strategies to reduce the risk of falls throughout the hospital premises were identified. Points of engagement for inpatient assessment using KPJ FRAT were on admission, transfer in or when there is a change in patients’ condition. A prospective descriptive study was done and data was collected from 1st January 2009 till 31st December 2009 through interview with patients, healthcare providers and review of adverse event reports and medical records. Results: No of inpatients during this study were 37058 and there were 13 falls. The post implementation data reflects for every 1000 inpatient days the fall rate decreased to 4.3 falls. Conclusion: The use of KPJ FRAT and Fall Prevention program implemented throughout KPJ SSH has reduced the incidence of falls significantly by 48%. This might be due to increase awareness among the staff, hospital wide policy to report all cases and the formation of patient safety committee to formulate policy and reinforce the implementation processes. Limitation of the study include under reporting and heavy workload.


Author(s):  
Barbara Streimelweger ◽  
Katarzyna Wac ◽  
Wolfgang Seiringer

‘Patient Safety' tries to increase safety and transparency within healthcare systems for both patients and professionals. Within the healthcare sector, workflows become more and more complex, while time and money become scarce. As a consequence, the risk awareness, fault management and quality aspects become more important. One of the most well established risk assessment method is Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) – a reliability analysis and risk assessment tool widely used in various industries. The traditional FMEA is using a Risk Priority Number (RPN) ranking system to evaluate and identify the risk level of failures, and to prioritize actions. However, there are several shortcomings in obtaining a quality estimate of the failure ratings with FMEA, especially when human factors play an important role. Thus, a new risk assessment method called HFdFMEA (Human Factor dependent FMEA) based on the dependency of used parameters and the observation of human factors, is proposed to address the drawbacks. The opportunity to improve patient safety is discussed as result of HFdFMEA.


BJS Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-205
Author(s):  
A. J. Heideveld‐Chevalking ◽  
H. Calsbeek ◽  
J. Hofland ◽  
W. J. H. J. Meijerink ◽  
A. P. Wolff

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