scholarly journals Challenges Faced by Health Professionals in Obtaining Correct Medication Information in the Absence of a Shared Digital Medication List

Pharmacy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Unn Sollid Manskow ◽  
Truls Tunby Kristiansen
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Patient Safety ◽  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Digital Systems ◽  
Medication List ◽  
Medication Information ◽  
Patient Medication ◽  
Ensure Patient Safety

Information about patient medication use is usually registered and stored in different digital systems, making it difficult to share information across health care organisations. The lack of digital systems able to share medication information poses a threat to patient safety and quality of care. We explored the experiences of health professionals with obtaining and exchanging information on patient medication lists in Norwegian primary health care within the context of current digital and non-digital solutions. We used a qualitative research design with semi-structured interviews, including general practitioners (n = 6), pharmacists (n = 3), nurses (n = 17) and medical doctors (n = 6) from six municipalities in Norway. Our findings revealed the following five challenges characterised by being cut off from information on patient medication lists in the current digital and non-digital solutions: ‘fragmentation of information systems’, ‘perceived risk of errors’, ‘excessive time use’, ‘dependency on others’ and ‘uncertainty’. The challenges were particularly related to patient transitions between levels of care. Our study shows an urgent need for digital solutions to ensure seamless, up-to-date information about patient medication lists in order to prevent medication-related problems. Future digital solutions for a shared medication list should address these challenges directly to ensure patient safety and quality of care.

scholarly journals Patient safety and quality of care: How may clinical simulation contribute?

2015 ◽  
pp. 412-424
Keyword(s):  
Patient Safety ◽  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
Work Practices ◽  
Health It ◽  
Clinical Context ◽  
Clinical Simulation ◽  
Ensure Patient Safety

The usability of health information technology (IT) is increasingly recognized as critically important to the development of systems that ensure patient safety and quality of care. The substantial complexity of organizations, work practice and physical environments within the healthcare sector influences the development and application of health IT. When health IT is introduced in local clinical work practices, potential patient safety hazards and insufficient support of work practices need to be examined. Qualitative methods, such as clinical simulation, may be used to evaluate new technology in correlation with the clinical context and to study the interaction between users, technology and work practice. Compared with the “classic” methods, such as heuristic inspection and usability testing, clinical simulation takes the clinical context into account. Clinical simulation can be useful in many processes in the human-centred design cycle. In the requirement specification, clinical simulation can be useful to analyze user requirements and work practice as well to evaluate requirements. In the design of health IT, clinical simulation can be used to evaluate clinical information systems and serve as common ground to help to achieve a shared understanding between various communities of practice. In a public procurement process, a clinical simulation-based assessment can help give insight into different solutions and how they support work practice. Before organizational implementation, clinical simulation is a very suitable means, by which to assess an application in connection with work practice.

scholarly journals Can the craze for patient safety hinder a more holistic care of the person in the health care system?

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Mamane Abdoulaye Samri ◽  
Daphney St-Germain
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Patient Safety ◽  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Health System ◽  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Clinical Governance ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Holistic Care

Background and objective: Since the publication of a report by the Institute of Medicine on the mortality associated with adverse events in the hospital, patient safety has become one of the essential objectives of the health care system. However, this movement tends to obscure the fundamental link between safety and quality of care in the health system. The study was aimed to demonstrate that the only focus on patient safety concept overshadow the more holistic care of the person and the population in the health care system.Methods: Documentary research in the Pubmed database and the Google Scholar search engine, from 1999 to 2017.Results and conclusion: Highly targeted safety research without addressing quality at first can only be a long-term panacea for current health policies. For cause, a one-way look at patient safety could lead to significant impacts at the population level. In order to get out of this craze, health system decision-makers would benefit from supporting clinical governance advocating humanistic and holistic strategies for interventions, engaging in a process of continuous improvement of the Quality of care more profitable in the long term. In order to overcome this craze, health system decision-makers would benefit from supporting clinical governance that advocates humanistic and holistic strategies for interventions, by engaging in a process of continuous improvement in the quality of care that is most beneficial in the long term. This posture is similar to Caring's well-known nursing model.

Improving Quality of Care through Risk Management Knowledge Transfer and Quality Assurance in Nursing Care

2012 ◽  
pp. 233-241
Author(s):  
Kleopatra Alamantariotou
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Quality Assurance ◽  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Knowledge Transfer ◽  
Nursing Care ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Careful Consideration

The purpose of this chapter is to provide innovative knowledge and creative ideas of improving quality of care and to explore how risk management and Knowledge transfer and quality assurance can improve health care. Under careful consideration, our purpose is to summarize which factors improve and promote the quality of care and which factors diminish quality. There are forms of ongoing efforts to make performance better. Quality improvement must be a long-term, continuous effort, reducing errors and providing a safe trust environment for health professionals and patients. After reading this chapter, you should know the answer to these questions: What role can risk management and knowledge transfer play in quality of care? How can risk management and knowledge transfer work together? What are the factors that improve risk management and quality assurance in health care? How does knowledge transfer support, inform, and improve care?

scholarly journals Legal Mechanisms to Improve Quality of Care in Canadian Hospitals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorian Hardcastle
Keyword(s):  
Patient Safety ◽  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Improve Quality ◽  
Hospital Governance ◽  
Individual Health ◽  
Legal Relationship ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
The Law

Tens of thousands of Canadians die each year as a result of preventable injuries sustained in hospitals. The patient safety literature suggests that we must implement systems and processes designed to prevent errors, rather than focusing on the mistakes of individual health professionals. Although the law tends to reinforce the provider-centric approach to errors, several law reforms have the potential to catalyze a systems-centric approach that finds support in the patient safety literature: shifting some liability from physicians to hospitals, reforming hospital governance practices, and reconsidering the legal relationship between physicians and hospitals.

scholarly journals Patient safety, ethics and whistleblowing: a nursing response to the events at the Campbelltown and Camden Hospitals

2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan-Jane Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Patient Safety ◽  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Professional Conduct ◽  
Australian Health

IN NOVEMBER 2002, in what stands as one of the most significant whistle blowing cases in the history of the Australian health care system, four nurses went public with concerns they had about the management of clinical incidents and patient safety at two hospitals in Sydney, New South Wales. The handling of this case and its aftermath raises important moral questions concerning the nature of whistleblowing in health care domains and the possible implications for the patient safety and quality of care movement in Australia. This paper presents an overview of the case, the moral risks associated with whistleblowing, and some lessons learned. The International Council of Nurses (2000) Code of Ethics stipulates that nurses have a stringent responsibility to 'take appropriate action to safeguard individuals when their care is endangered by a co-worker or any other person'. Other local and international nursing codes of ethics and standards of professional conduct likewise obligate nurses to take appropriate action to safeguard individuals when placed at risk by the incompetent, unethical or illegal acts of others ? including the system. Despite these coded moral prescriptions for responsible and accountable professional conduct, taking appropriate action when others are placed at risk (including making reports to appropriate authorities) is never an easy task nor is it free of risk for nurses. As has been amply demonstrated in the literature, taking a moral stance to protect patient safety and quality of care can be extremely hazardous to nurses (Johnstone 1994, 2002, 2004; Ahern & McDonald 2002). In situations where nurses report their concerns to an appropriate authority but nothing is done to either investigate or validate their claims, nurses are faced with the ethical dilemma and 'choice' of whether to: do nothing ('put up and shut up'); leave their current place of employment (and possibly even the profession); or take the matter further ('blow the whistle') by reporting their concerns to an external authority that they perceive as having the power to do something about their concerns. It is rare for nurses to 'blow the whistle' in the public domain. When they do, it is usually because they perceive that something is terribly wrong and, as a matter of conscience, they cannot just look on as morally passive bystanders. For those nurses who do take a stand, the costs to them personally and professionally are almost always devastating, with no guarantees that the situation on which they have taken a public stance will be improved. Nurses who blow the whistle often end up with their careers and lives in tatters (see case studies in Johnstone 1994 & 2004).

scholarly journals Why attitudes to quality of care are changing

2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bob Gibberd
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Patient Safety ◽  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Level Of Care

The editorial by Stephen Bolsin is appropriate at this time of change in attitudes to patient safety and qualityof health care. Bolsin has indicated one method to monitor the level of care; the recent use of comparative databy anaesthetic specialists. It is interesting to document the factors that have caused this change to collectingclinical indicators.

Creating a fractal-based quality management infrastructure

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 576-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J Pronovost ◽  
Jill A Marsteller
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Patient Safety ◽  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Quality Management ◽  
Health System ◽  
Fractal Structure ◽  
Coordination Theory ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Fractal System

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe how a fractal-based quality management infrastructure could benefit quality improvement (QI) and patient safety efforts in health care. Design/methodology/approach – The premise for this infrastructure comes from the QI work with health care professionals and organizations. The authors used the fractal structure system in a health system initiative, a statewide collaborative, and several countrywide efforts to improve quality of care. It is responsive to coordination theory and this infrastructure is responsive to coordination theory and repeats specific characteristics at every level of an organization, with vertical and horizontal connections among these levels to establish system-wide interdependence. Findings – The fractal system infrastructure helped a health system achieve 96 percent compliance on national core measures, and helped intensive care units across the USA, Spain, and England to reduce central line-associated bloodstream infections. Practical implications – The fractal system approach organizes workers around common goals, links all hospital levels and, supports peer learning and accountability, grounds solutions in local wisdom, and effectively uses available resources. Social implications – The fractal structure helps health care organizations meet their social and ethical obligations as learning organizations to provide the highest possible quality of care and safety for patients using their services. Originality/value – The concept of deliberately creating an infrastructure to manage QI and patient safety work and support organizational learning is new to health care. This paper clearly describes how to create a fractal infrastructure that can scale up or down to a department, hospital, health system, state, or country.

Patient safety and quality of care: the role of the health care assistant

2004 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 452-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh P. McKenna ◽  
Felicity Hasson ◽  
Sinead Keeney
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Patient Safety ◽  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Health Care Assistant
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