According to the BBC, better-equipped hospitals which employ more information technology within their departments could be preventing up to 16,000 deaths every year.
An investigation into the use of IT in hospitals found that University Hospitals Birmingham saw a 17% fall in deaths in emergency patients over 12 months.
IT advancements within the Trust include IT survellance and an error accountability policy, as well as computer-generated reminders for drug administering and prescription clashes. This has resulted in a sharp fall in the number of medication errors – 50% over 12 months.
The computer system also monitors infection control, VTE assessments and falls, and generates alarms when staff key-in clinical information that could give cause for concern, such as changes to a patient’s temperature, heart rate, or blood pressure. This triggers an alert in the critical care Unit, prompting an outreach team to be dispatched to wherever they are needed in the hospital.
Where mistakes arise, the real-time feedback to senior executives enables them to call staff to account, with regular reviews to assess and explain performance.
Health Minister Simon Burns said the system was “an excellent example of how the NHS can harness information to improve patient care”.
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