Patient and staff safety should be the first priority of every hospital. Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death, and about 250,000 deaths every year happen through it.
The latest advances in health technology showed how it could be a brilliant tool to reduce potential human errors, improve communication between clinicians, increase access to medical information, increase hospital efficiency, improve patient and staff safety as well as the overall experience. Here are the top ways hospitals are taking advantage of health technology:
Monitoring Hygiene
Proper hygiene is crucial to keep patient safety and also take care of health workers who are at high risk of getting infections when treating patients. One of the most effective ways to prevent the spreading of harmful microorganisms is hand washing and now can play a huge role in monitoring this activity and remembering health workers to do it.
Thanks to a sensor, it has it can detect any hand hygiene event. Every patient’s bed will have a green monitor and when the health worker is treating a patient, if he/she hasn’t done the hand washing, the monitor will vibrate to send a reminder to the health worker to wash hands.
The system is able to provide accurate outcome data of all hygiene events, and it has a direct correlation with a reduction in nosocomial infections.
Besides handwashing, hospital hygiene also consists of cleaning and disinfecting all the spaces. Now there are disinfecting systems like the Xenex healthcare one that uses a patented UV pulse technology that delivers broad-spectrum UV light that destroys the DNA of all microorganisms like bacteria, virus, mold, and spores in surfaces and in the air, making them unable to reproduce or mutate and killing the microorganism.
Reduce Potential Human Errors
Capturing the patient’s information in a hand-written form could lead to poor quality information. This increases the risk of administering the wrong medicine to the patient or incorrect administration of blood bags during a blood transfusion, which could be fatal.
When capturing the patient’s information, scanning and printing technologies should be used to ensure the information is accurate. For example, in blood transfusions, and auto-ID solution with barcode trackings from mobile computers could dramatically reduce the chance of giving the wrong blood type to a patient.
Barcoding is a system that allows matching patients to their records, medications, and treatments. It can even be used to monitor the health of the institution.
Prepare for Emergencies
It is important to be prepared for emergencies like natural disasters or cyberattacks. Today there communication tools like emergency notification that allows a health worker to alert a group of people of his/her staff with crucial information during an emergency. This needs to go along with redundant systems and continuity plans to help the hospital to prepare for any emergency scenario. This will improve hospital safety and provide a better outcome.
JD Edwards is a software that allows organizations to track and report occupational incidents. It helps to record the potential incidents and how to handle them safely. Thanks to the tracking option, organizations can analyze past incidents and learn how to prevent them.
Health Information Technology
It is designed to manage healthcare data. It includes the electronic medical record that replaces the paper version of a patient’s medical history, and it is able to include more health data, test results, and treatments. It is designed to share data with other healthcare providers, which improve communication between clinicians.
Patients are able to access their personal health data and look up information like medications and lab results. They can even have active communications with their physicians; this improves their patient experience.
The practice management software helps health care providers to manage the scheduling and billing, increasing the organization and hospital efficiency.
HIT allows patients to have direct access to their health records, and the information is accurate. It improves medication safety and reduces the risk of medication errors. It also improves the internal care coordination between all health care professionals, which increases the efficiency of the hospital.
