The company said organizations are increasing using technology to decrease serious safety events throughout their organization. This includes processes such as tracking and reporting hand hygiene compliance, conducting ongoing performance improvement projects, and taking additional steps to increase patient safety and near-miss reporting.
When integrating technology into an organization’s risk management process, Verge said it’s important to consider:
1. Custom data collection. Your organization has specific needs and reporting requirements for your setting, culture and municipality. It’s essential that the technology you choose is versatile and customizable to meet your organization’s distinct needs for PSO, Magnet, NDNQI and state or industry-specific standards.
2. Workflow. All risk management activities center around processes. Workflow should be customized to match the flow of work without delay or gaps from start to finish. This workflow allows organizations to be proactive with data instead of reactive. Examples of leveraging workflow for event reporting include notification of potential duplicates, re-routing work when an entry is edited or deleted, and escalation emails to serve as a reminder or re-route work to other departments.
3. Custom reporting. Maximizing technology to minimize serious safety events means data must be accessible and in real-time for continued review and process improvement. Formatting options must be plentiful, as needs vary and change based on audience and data. The ability to easily create and customize reports meaningful to your setting ensures you will have more time to analyze data instead of wrestle with options in Crystal Reports or Excel.
4. Comprehensive staff training. Integrating new technology into your organization should be easy with the appropriate development and training. Ensure your new solution provides web trainings, ongoing support beyond implementation, and that you have access to support through a variety of methods (phone, email, instant message, etc.).
5. Review and ACT on data. What you do with your data is paramount — simply collecting the data will not yield lower safety events at your organization. The reviewing, sharing and processing of data, however, may yield a culture that lowers serious safety events. From root cause analysis to real-time surveillance of data to committee review of individual and aggregate reports, the software solution your organization implements needs to allow for ongoing interaction with the data.
About Verge Solutions
Verge Solutions offers 100 percent web-based products for streamlining, historically, separate processes towards the improvement of hospitals and healthcare systems. VSuite modules work together to automate and integrate information and processes in order to increase operational efficiency and ultimately, improve the quality of care.
Learn more about Verge Solutions.
