by
Loren Bonner, DOTmed News Online Editor | November 01, 2012
From the November 2012 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“It’s like any social media platform but tuned exactly to patient safety,” says Terry. GE launched the evaluation period in April with 63 hospitals and seven private communities.
Discussions are grouped by type of patient safety events, like medication errors, and by specialty. There’s also a section where participants can ask for advice.
Terry says he hopes this tool, in addition to PSOs, will finally get providers comfortable sharing and talking about patient safety.
“The biggest challenge is getting past blame and getting to a deeper understanding of the root cause,” he says.
Getting patients involved
One of the latest efforts to improve patient safety will seek input from patients and their families. In September, it was announced that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is seeking approval from White House Office of Management and Budget for a prototype of a patient reporting system, which will ask patients to report medical mistakes through a private system. In a statement from AHRQ to federal officials, they say there is growing evidence that many adverse medical events go unreported in the current system and a significant reason this occurs is because most systems do not include reports from patients and their families. AHRQ says a more accurate and complete understanding of adverse events will help make health care safer.
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