Professor Richard Smallwood, previous Australian Chief Medical Officer, has described patient safety to be the biggest political motivator in the Health industry between now and 2020.
It is estimated that 18,000 Australians die each year as a result of medical injury.
Almost 17% of admissions are associated with an adverse event that prolongs the hospital stay or results in disability. Half of these are considered preventable.
Medication errors are common throughout hospitals, and recent research in the United States found that up to 19% of all medication administered in a selection of hospitals to be in error. These are errors that can be reduced or even eliminated by providing real time information at the patient’s bedside.
The continuing attraction of recording on paper (despite modern technology) is partly the portability of that paper to the place of work at the bedside. It is striking that most modern Critical Care Units are being built with PCs at every bedside.
While the hospital system cannot support a PC at every bedside, wireless technology is making it increasingly affordable for clinicians to use a handheld PC.
Clinicians empowered with live information at the patient bedside work more safely and by making real-time decisions that result in fewer errors.
