A new survey from Health Catalyst found nine out of 10 physicians, nurses and healthcare executives say their organizations are making strides to improve their patients’ safety, but progress is slowed by ineffective technology.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Respondents said data quality, patient matching and lack of real-time warnings for possible harm events prevented patient safety improvement 30 percent of the time.
2. Lack of reimbursement for safety initiatives accounted for 10 percent of survey respondents’ reasons.
3. Nineteen percent said lack of reimbursement for safety initiatives affected improving patient safety.
4. Organizations' lack of effective information technology for patient safety is tied to healthcare organizations being dependent on manual methods of tracking and reporting safety events. Voluntary reporting was the highest source at 82 percent, infection surveys at 67 percent and manual audits at 58 percent.
5. "As these survey results confirm, the current approach to using voluntary reporting to monitor patient safety gives health care organizations a false sense of tackling the ever-present danger of patient harm," said Health Catalyst's Vice President of Patient Safety Products Stanley Pestotnik.
