A lack of effective technology is impeding the progress of patient safety, according to a 2018 survey of healthcare professionals. Even though most healthcare organizations claim safety as a priority, serious challenges remain to making a significant impact on patient safety outcomes. Survey respondents said ineffective information technology and the related lack of real-time warnings for possible harm events were the top barriers to improving patient safety. They cited a number of key obstacles: Lack of resources. Organization structure. Lack of reimbursement for safety measures. Changes in patient population. This survey of more than 400 healthcare professionals tackles a big question many hospital leaders are asking: Why aren’t we seeing improvements in patient safety despite our efforts?

1. Survey Shows the
Role of Technology in the
Progress of Patient Safety

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Technology and Patient Safety
Technology has become an integral
part of healthcare, and as hospital
systems work toward improving patient
safety, it’s more important than ever.
Although the majority of healthcare
organizations are focused on patient
safety, the results of those efforts are
yet to be seen.
Better technology could be the key,
according to a June 2018 survey by
Health Catalyst.

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Technology and Patient Safety
Nearly nine out of 10 respondents to a
national survey of physicians, nurses,
and healthcare executives say their
organizations are successfully
improving the safety of patients.
But real problems remain.
In order to make further improvements,
respondents to the Health Catalyst
survey said they need better health
information technology to warn
clinicians of impending patient harm,
as well as more resources and greater
organizational focus on the problem.

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Technology and Patient Safety
The need for improvement is compelling.
Medical error is one of the leading causes
of death in the U.S.
While mortality grabs the headlines, non-
lethal harm events are even more frequent,
occurring at a rate 10 to 20 times higher
than lethal events, according to The
Journal of Patient Safety.
Researchers estimate that one in
three hospitalized patients experience
preventable harm and over 400,000
individuals die each year from
these injuries.

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Technology and Patient Safety
Despite these statistics, confidence in current patient
safety efforts is high, according to the online survey of
462 medical, quality, and pharmacy professionals in
healthcare organizations of all sizes across the U.S.:
Success in Improving Patient Safety
79%
11%
9%
“Somewhat Good” or “Very Good”
“Poor”
“Excellent”

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Technology and Patient Safety: Barriers
The survey confirms that serious challenges prevent healthcare organizations
from making a significant dent in preventable errors, with 89 percent of
respondents seeing room for improvement.
However, they identified several key obstacles that prevent them from
achieving their patient safety goals, listed below in order of percentage:

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Over-Reliance on Voluntary, Manual Reporting
The lack of effective information technology tops
the list of barriers to improving patient safety.
This problem ties in closely with another survey
finding—that healthcare organizations are
almost completely dependent on manual
methods of tracking and reporting safety events.
Nearly one-third of respondents (28%) reported
also using trigger tools as a data source for
patient safety, which could mean either the
manual process of chart review that relies on
Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
methodology, or home-grown reports that
also follow the IHI methodology.

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Over-Reliance on Voluntary, Manual Reporting
These standard approaches to manual
reporting of hospital safety events have been
shown to find less than five percent of all-
cause harm.
Manual reporting is based on data that is at
least 30 days old, and it requires extensive
time and resources for data extraction,
aggregation, and reporting, resulting in
limited root-cause analyses.

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Over-Reliance on Voluntary, Manual Reporting
As these survey results confirm, the current approach to
using voluntary reporting to monitor patient safety gives
healthcare organizations a false sense of tackling the ever-
present danger of patient harm.
“Recent evidence continues to demonstrate that the majority
of patient harm goes undetected and that medical injury is
the third leading cause of death in the U.S.—evidence that
challenges voluntary reporting as an effective patient safety
management strategy.”
Stanley Pestotnik, MS, RPh,
Vice President of Patient Safety Products

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Regulatory Reporting Requirements Help
When asked to name factors that are
most influential in driving their patient
safety efforts, a majority of survey
respondents (51 percent) named
regulatory reporting requirements.
In second place at 39 percent was
financial considerations, such as
malpractice claims, value-based
contracts, and reduced reimbursement.
Respondents cited additional factors:

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Regulatory Reporting Requirements Help
Determining exactly where to focus patient improvement efforts seems to be
a difficult decision for most organizations. When asked to identify the areas
where patient safety most needs improvement, survey respondents rated
four of the six choices within three points of each other. (“Other” = 3.7%)

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Over-Reliance on Voluntary, Manual Reporting
The big picture takeaway from this survey is that although a
small portion of respondents felt they have a good handle on
their patient safety efforts, the largest portion of respondents
still believe that they have room for improvement.
“Surveilling all-cause harm will aid healthcare organizations
in bridging the gap from niche focused improvements to
proactive harm identification and broader patient safety
improvement interventions.”
Valere Lemon, MBA, RN
Senior Subject Matter Expert

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New Patient Safety Technology Introduced
In June 2018, Health Catalyst announced
the release of the Patient Safety Monitor™
Suite: Surveillance Module, the industry’s
first comprehensive patient safety
application to use predictive and text
analytics combined with concurrent clinician
review of data to monitor, detect, predict,
and prevent threats to patient safety before
harm can occur.

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New Patient Safety Technology Introduced
The Surveillance Module quickly identifies
patterns of harm and proposes strategies to
eliminate patient safety risks and hazards for
current and future patients.
This potent combination of predictive analytics,
text analytics, and near real-time data from
multiple sources enables the Patient Safety
Monitor Suite to predict harm events and
trigger a response while the patient is still
in the hospital.

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Survey Methods
Survey results reflect the opinions of 462 healthcare
professionals who responded to an online survey in
May and June, 2018.
Respondents included 240 physicians,
99 nurses (including 19 chief nursing
officers), 38 pharmacists, 14 chief quality
officers or directors of quality, many
other roles.
They work for organizations ranging from
some of the nation’s largest academic
medical centers to national health insurers
and independent physician practices.

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For more information:
“This book is a fantastic piece of work”
– Robert Lindeman MD, FAAP, Chief Physician Quality Officer

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More about this topic
Link to original article for a more in-depth discussion.
Survey Shows the Role of Technology in the Progress of Patient Safety
How to Use Data to Improve Patient Safety
Stan Pestotnik, MS, RPh, Patient Safety Products, VP; Valere Lemon, MBA, RN, Senior Subject Matter Expert
Improving Patient Safety: Machine Learning Targets an Urgent Concern
Stan Pestotnik, MS, RPh, Patient Safety Products, VP
Introducing the Health Catalyst Monitor™ Patient Safety Suite: Surveillance Module
Stan Pestotnik, MS, RPh, Patient Safety Products, VP; Michael Barton, Patient Safety Operations, SVP
Improving Patient Safety and Quality through Culture, Clinical Analytics, Evidence-Based Practices,
and Adoption – Leslie Hough Falk, Sr VP
The Top Seven Analytics-Driven Approaches for Reducing Diagnostic Error and Improving Patient Safety
Kirstin Scott, Senior Medical Writer; Tracy Vayo, Director of Knowledge Development