It’s no secret that the healthcare industry has evolved rapidly in recent years, driven by significant medical and technological advances that have raised the standard of care. Although the healthcare industry can be proud of its dynamism, there is still much work to be done. Hospitals and health systems continue to grapple with key systemic issues that directly impact quality of care and patient safety. Preventable harm, which includes medication errors, unsafe surgical procedures, healthcare-related infections, diagnostic errors, patient falls, patient misidentification and more, remains at an all-time high. Despite advances in patient safety over the past two decades, medical harm remains a leading cause of death worldwide.
Globally, medical errors are responsible for the deaths of three million patients each year. In the course of an hour, 70 hospital patients die or suffer serious injuries due to medical mistakes and errors. These errors are often the result of system or process failures and do not directly reflect the practices of individual healthcare workers.
That’s why addressing preventable harm begins with breaking down the data silos that exist in the healthcare landscape and bringing disparate systems together through connected healthcare operations. Disjointed systems hinder the flow of data and critical information that is critical to preventing similar incidents from happening again in the future. By leveraging actionable data and analytics across all operations, hospitals and health systems can identify risks and build a safety culture that better serves patients, families, healthcare workers and the organization as a whole.
Different systems make decision-making difficult
The healthcare industry as a whole has a massive amount of data, and this amount is only expected to grow as technologies continue to advance, innovation in the industry, and the patient population grows. Healthcare generates 30% of the world’s data and this data doubles every three years. This wealth of information is a gateway to improving quality of care and patient safety, but with 97% of available data unused or ignored, progress is hampered by broken processes.
When healthcare operations are not aligned, information becomes isolated and siled, compromising healthcare systems’ ability to predict and prevent future security incidents. To properly and holistically address preventable harm, healthcare organizations need information across all operations. However, simply accessing this data is not enough. Healthcare organizations need the right technology solutions that can capture data and transform it into actionable insights so that their organization can make safer, more informed decisions across all areas.
The value of connected health operations
Today’s standard operating technologies are largely disjointed and often fail to meet the modern challenges and needs of our healthcare ecosystem. By connecting disparate technologies, healthcare systems can make better use of their data and leverage real-time insights that enable safer patient care. Imagine a system where all backend software operates and communicates consistently and transparently, and where information flows from all departments across risk and security, vendor management, compliance, and people management.
By connecting disparate systems, hospitals and health systems can understand the bigger picture, reduce variability and risk, and ensure every healthcare interaction is as safe and efficient as possible. By improving collaboration across operations, we can create a stronger, more unified culture around patient safety that is focused on learning and proactivity.
Take incident reporting, for example – an important part of the overall system. Proper recording of patient safety incidents is critical to making the right technological and organizational changes to improve safety. Many healthcare systems effectively operate in the dark because unfortunately not all patient safety incidents are recorded. Without knowledge of all patient safety incidents within their organization, hospitals and health systems cannot implement efficient and effective change at a systemic level. Using advanced incident reporting software that not only facilitates the capture of all incident data but also enables data sharing and the flow of operational insights across all departments is critical to safer care.
The future of safer care
In recent years, the topic of safer healthcare has gained increasing media attention, particularly given the evolving role of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare and increasing discussion about regulations. As hospitals and health systems continue to explore their implementation, we are beginning to see how AI can help break down these data silos and increase efficiency by serving as a supporting tool to improve the people behind our workforce. Referring to the example of incident reporting, generative AI can make it easier for healthcare workers to log incidents. In the future, AI and machine learning can help identify trends from incident reports to better predict and prevent future events.
As healthcare leaders, we must seize the opportunity and create real change to ensure patient safety is always our top priority. At a national level, we are already seeing an organized response to harness the latest technology to make care safer. Recently, a coalition of leading healthcare organizations and experts proposed a new federal body dedicated to patient safety within the Department of Health and Human Services: the National Patient Safety Board (NPSB). The NPSB would focus on developing technology and AI-driven solutions to patient safety problems, including medication errors, wrong-site surgeries, errors in pathology labs, and problems transitioning from acute to long-term care, thereby easing the burden of data collection on the front lines reduce and at the same time detect precursors of damage. I hope there will be a day when adverse patient events can be holistically prevented and a truly connected healthcare system exists.
Patients everywhere deserve great care. By connecting disparate technologies and building an equitable culture open to tracking, analyzing and learning about adverse events, healthcare systems can reduce preventable harm and achieve high levels of reliability and prevention.
Photo: Dilok Klaisataporn, Getty Images
Jeff Surges has 30 years of leadership experience leading high-growth healthcare technology companies. As CEO of RLDatix, he is responsible for overseeing and driving RLDatix’s strategic growth in over 20 countries. Throughout his career, Jeff has led multiple public and private companies as CEO, founder, board member, investor and entrepreneur – a wide range of roles that have provided him with unique operational experience and extensive knowledge of the healthcare industry. Jeff received a BA from Eastern Illinois University.