This year, the 5th Annual World Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit focused on 13 Actionable Patient Safety Solutions (APSS), which the Patient Safety Movement believes can reduce the number of preventable deaths in hospitals to zero by 2020.

In addition to general issues that are of concern across the healthcare sector, the APSS focuses on the following challenges:

  • Venous Thromboembolism (VTE)
  • Mental Health
  • Paediatric Adverse Drug Events


In order to achieve the goal of significantly reducing hospital mistakes and preventable patient deaths, each hospital and institution needs to adopt a variety of workable measures towards an effective model.


The 2017 summit, which took place on February 3-4 and included plenary speakers and panels involving a variety of experts in the field, proposes 13 APSS, which include these top actionable solutions:


Ø 
Challenge One: Creating a Culture of Safety


Organisations that achieve high reliability in effectively reducing serious hazards have emphasised safety culture as a key factor in promoting excellence in performance. However, many healthcare organizations struggle to achieve it.
An executive summary checklist was compiled by the Patient Safety Movement to help managers to implement recommended changes, while additional information on this APSS, including infrastructure advice and a technology plan are provided in an online document.

According to the National Patient Safety Foundation’s Lucian Leape Institute (2015), a culture of safety that fully supports high reliability has three central attributes: trust, report, and improve.

 

Ø  Challenge Two: Healthcare-Associated Infections

 

An executive summary checklist (adapted from the WHO Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework), as well as further advice about this APSS, is available as an online document from the Patient Safety Movement.

 

There is emerging evidence that electronic hand hygiene compliance systems, when combined with appropriate staff feedback and multi modal action plans can lead to reduced infections and avoided costs. Visit http://www.ehcohealth.org/the-evidence/ for a list of scientific studies.

 

Ø  Challenge Three: Medication Errors

 

Success in implementing this Actionable Patient Safety Solution will rely on implanting a technology plan using systems detailed in this APSS guidance document from the Patient Safety Movement.

 

The document also presents an executive summary checklist to help leaders to implement this APSS.

 

Ø  Challenge Four: Failure to Rescue: Monitoring for Opioid Induced Respiratory Depression

 

Establishing an effective program to reduce opioid-induced respiratory depression will require full hospital administration support to complete actionable steps detailed in the Patient Safety Movement APSS document.

 

Continuous pulse oximetry, continuous respiratory rate monitoring, and continuous respiratory rate monitoring are listed within a recommended technology plan.

 

Ø  Challenge Five: Anaemia and Transfusion - A Patient Safety Concern

 

A detailed actionable checklist is provided in the Patient Safety Movement document for this APSS, along with information on various means for achieving effective measures.

Within the technology plan are suggestions to implement electronic health record (EHR) fields requiring documentation of clinical indication for transfusion and hemoglobin value prior to each RBC unit; and to implement noninvasive and continuous hemoglobin monitoring (SpHb® adhesive sensors connected to rainbow SET monitors with SpHb, or a multi-parameter patient monitor with SpHb, including but not limited to the Dräger® M540/Infinity Acute Care System, Welch Allyn® CVSM, Fukuda Denshi® 8500, Saadat® Aria and Alborz monitors, GE®, Philips®, and more).

 

Ø  Challenge Six: Hand-Off Communications

 

When hand-off communications (HOC) information is absent, incomplete, erroneous or delayed, serious patient harm may occur. According to the Patient Safety Movement, the establishment of accurate, complete, timely and effective HOC requires that the healthcare administration devise and support an implementation plan that includes actionable steps detailed in its APSS guidelines for HOC.

 

According to the report, the technologies utilised should focus on ensuring that at the point of hand-off, all data critical to the care of the patient are communicated by the sender, and are applied in real-time by the receiver to ensure that required care is executed in an accurate and timely manner.

Full Details of all 13 APSS

For full details of all 13 of the Actionable Patient Safety Solutions proposed at the 5th Annual World Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit, visit the Patient Safety Movement actionable solutions page, from which healthcare leaders can download comprehensive guidelines for achieving patient safety targets.


Image Credit: Pixabay


«« Predicting Patient Hospitalisation: PCPs vs. Algorithms


Coaching Patients for Surgery Lowered Stays, Saved Money »»



Latest Articles

patient safety, HIT Safety, Actionable Patient Safety Solutions, preventable deaths This year, the 5th Annual World Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit focused on 13 Actionable Patient Safety Solutions (APSS), which the Patient Safety Movement believes can reduce the number of preventable deaths in hospitals to zero by 2020.