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Showing results for tags 'Electronic Health Record'.
Found 130 results
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Content ArticlePaul McGinness, chief executive, Lenus Health, presents new evidence showing how a digital service model can reduce respiratory-related hospital admissions and enable care at home.
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Content ArticleThis article tells the story of Mr K, who died following a misdiagnosis of tension pneumothorax. Mr K was 81 and had a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and bullous emphysema. He had been diagnosed with a bulla, a large air pocket, in his right lung. The medical team treating Mr K after his admission to hospital with shortness of breath failed to review his previous x-ray and medical notes, and did not involve the respiratory team in his treatment. This led to his misdiagnosis, after which he was fitted with an unnecessary chest drain. The drain collapsed the bulla and ruptured a blood vessel leading to progressive bleeding. The medical team did not recognise their error or Mr K's bleeding and he died two days following the insertion of the drain. At his inquest, the Coroner found that the unnecessary chest drain led to Mr K's death, and that there was a missed opportunity to reassess the situation at a review the next day. They ordered that a prevention of future death report be made as the evidence heard at the inquest revealed a number of matters that gave rise to concern.
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Content ArticleThis mixed method case study in The BMJ aimed to evaluate a national programme to develop and implement centrally stored electronic summaries of patients’ medical records. The authors found that creating individual summary care records (SCRs) was a complex, technically challenging and labour intensive process that occurred more slowly than planned. They concluded that complex interdependencies, tensions and high implementation workload should be expected when rolling out SCRs.
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News Article
Centre has ‘lost the narrative’ over NHSE merger
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS should reduce the number of different electronic patient records (EPRs) used by trusts and instead rely on a smaller set of suppliers with nationally agreed prices, according to the CEO of NHS Digital. Simon Bolton, who is also NHS England’s interim chief information officer, also said NHSD and NHSE had “lost the narrative a little bit” over their forthcoming merger, due to a “fixation” with reducing NHSE staff numbers by a third; and that the centre of the NHS remained too “autocratic and authoritarian”. Mr Bolton said there were “too many” different EPRs used in the health service and said no private sector organisation would allow such variability for so long. His comments come amid a national drive to improve the uptake and quality of EPRs across NHS providers, following new technology targets set by the government earlier this year. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 28 September 2022 -
Content ArticleThis dashboard presents the results of a patient safety survey conducted by the European Alliance for Access to Safe Medicines (EAASM) and European Collaborative Action on Medication Errors and Traceability (ECAMET). The dashboard shows variations in different hospital-reported measures of patient safety across thirteen European countries. The questions in the survey focus on accreditation, training, electronic health records and recording, tracking and publishing of medication error data.
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Content ArticleThe US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) consists of individuals from sectors outside of the US Federal Government who advise the President on policy matters where the understanding of science, technology and innovation is key. This is the recording of a live-streamed meeting of PCAST, where invited speakers presented opportunities to advance scientific innovation, including improving patient safety.
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News Article
No mental health data taken in cyber attack, NHSE confirms
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
No patient data held by mental health trusts was taken following a cyber attack this summer, NHS England has confirmed. The regulator told HSJ it had received confirmation from tech firm Advanced, which was the subject of a cyber attack in July, that no data had been breached on its Carenotes electronic patient record. The EPR is used by around a dozen mental health trusts. The process of reconnecting trusts fully back to Carenotes also started this week, after providers spent two months with limited or no access to their EPR. HSJ previously revealed that senior NHS chiefs feared patient data may have been taken or accessed by those responsible for the cyber attack, who issued ransom demands to Advanced. Since then, experts have been brought in to investigate any potential data impact following the attack. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 21 September 2022 -
Content ArticleA digital transformation is underway in healthcare and health technology. But what exactly do the smart hospitals of the future look like? Are we heading for a fully virtual health experience? Whether it’s AI and machine learning, or another form of innovation – it’s clear to see that health tech, and healthcare, is changing drastically. The words “smart hospital” and “virtual hospital wards” have eased their way into our vocabulary – and they will soon be the driving force of healthcare everywhere. So what would smart hospitals look like? And what should we be expecting between now and 2050? Health Tech World asked some of the leading experts in the field to give us their predictions as well as their expertise on what the healthcare of the next few decades will look like.
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Content ArticleNaaheed Mukadam and colleagues investigated the incidence of diagnosed dementia and whether age at diagnosis and survival afterward differs among the UK's three largest ethnic groups. They used primary care electronic health records, linked Hospital Episode Statistics and mortality data for adults aged ≥65 years. They compared recorded dementia incidence 1997–2018, age at diagnosis, survival time and age at death after diagnosis in White, South Asian, and Black people. The study found that dementia incidence was higher in Black people. South Asian and Black people with dementia had a younger age of death than White participants and Black participants. The authors concluded that South Asian and Black peoples’ younger age of diagnosis and death means targeted prevention and care strategies for these groups should be prioritised and tailored to facilitate take-up.
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Content ArticleHardeep Singh, an informatics leader, patient safety advocate and innovator has been awarded the Individual Achievement Award in the 20th John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards for demonstrating exceptional leadership and scholarship in patient safety and healthcare quality through his substantive lifetime body of work. Eric Thomas speaks to Hardeep in an interview for the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.
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Content ArticleWith patients increasingly being able to view their healthcare records online or via an app, it is very important that they understand what their records say. This webpage by the NHS explains what some of the most common medical abbreviations mean, to help patients understand what has been written about their care and treatment.
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Content Article
HealthIT.Gov: SAFER guides (USA)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Health records and plans
The SAFER Guides consist of nine guides organiaed into three broad groups. These guides enable healthcare organisations to address electronic health record (EHR) safety in a variety of areas. Most organisations will want to start with the Foundational Guides, and proceed from there to address their areas of greatest interest or concern. -
News Article
NHS doctors' paperwork piles up after cyber-attack
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Doctors say it could take months to process mounting piles of medical paperwork caused by a continuing cyber-attack on an NHS supplier. One out-of-hours GP says patient care is being badly affected as staff enter a fourth week of taking care notes with pen and paper. The ransomware attack against software and services provider Advanced was first spotted on 4 August. The company says it may take another 12 weeks to get some services back online. Dr Fay Wilson, who manages an urgent-care centre in the West Midlands, says the main choke point for her team is with patient records. She said it could affect patient care "because we can't send notifications to GP practices, except by methods that don't work because they require a lot of manual handling, and we haven't got the staff to actually do the manual handling". Read full story Source: BBC News, 31 August 2022 -
Content ArticleProcesses relating to communication between healthcare professionals are complex and vulnerable to breakdown. In the electronic health record (EHR)-enabled healthcare environment, providers rely on technology to support and manage complex communication processes, and if implemented and used correctly, EHRs have potential to improve safety. This clinician communication self-assessment guide aims to help healthcare professionals determine how safe their practice is in relation to electronic health records (EHR) and communication.
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Content ArticleThis study in JAMA Network Open aimed to investigate how often patients who read open ambulatory visit notes perceive mistakes, and what types of mistakes they report. The results of the study showed that: 1 in 5 patients who read a note reported finding a mistake 40% perceived the mistake as serious the most common mistakes reported were mistakes in diagnoses, medical history, medications, physical examination, test results, notes on the wrong patient and sidedness. The authors suggest that patients may perceive important errors in their visit notes, and inviting them to report mistakes may be associated with improved record accuracy and patient engagement in safety.
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News Article
Trusts warn of continued care delay as IT outage goes on
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Mental health trusts continue to suffer much disruption after a cyber attack left them unable to access their electronic patient records. Several trusts which use Advanced’s CareNotes EPR are grappling with the system being down, although the company said on Friday some progress had been made to restore the EPR. One source at an affected mental health trust said there had been “not much in the way of improvements”, while another said they feared it could be “months” before they can fully access the EPR. NHS England’s mental health director Claire Murdoch is regularly raising issue nationally, HSJ was told, as response teams work with Advanced to investigate and restore IT systems, which were taken offline after the company was hit by a cyber attack two weeks ago. Hereford and Worcestershire Health and Care Trust has told its patients they might have to “provide more detail on your medical history to ensure clinicians have the most up-to-date information”, while Oxford Health Foundation Trust warned the technical issues could cause delays to patient care. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 21 August 2022 -
Content ArticleIn this blog, Charlotte Clayton, midwife and clinical advisor at the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps (ORCHA), explores how providing the right training and support for maternity staff is key to seeing the benefits tech can bring to quality of care and workload.
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News ArticleCriminals have issued ‘demands’ to an NHS IT supplier targeted by a cyber attack, leading health chiefs to fear they have accessed confidential patient data, HSJ has learned. IT firm Advanced was targeted last week. The company provides electronic patient records to several trusts and most NHS 111 providers. Multiple government agencies – including the National Crime Agency and GCHQ – are now working to identify the extent of the damage caused by the attackers, while leaders of affected mental health trusts have warned of a “pretty desperate” situation as staff are unable to access vital patient records. In a statement issued last night, Advanced said: “With respect to potentially impacted data, our investigation is under way, and when we have more information about potential data access or exfiltration, we will update customers as appropriate.” Read full story (paywalled) Source HSJ, 11 August 2022
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News Article
Cyber attack: NHS staff unable to access patient notes for three weeks
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A cyber attack that has caused a major outage of NHS IT systems is expected to last for more than three weeks, leaving doctors unable to see patients’ notes, The Independent has learned. Mental health trusts across the country will be left unable to access patient notes for weeks, and possibly months. Oxford Health Foundation Trust has declared a critical incident over the outage, which is believed to affect dozens of trusts, and has told staff it is putting emergency plans in place. One NHS trust chief said the situation could possibly last for “months” with several mental health trusts, and there was concern among leaders that the problem is not being prioritised. In an email to staff, Oxford Health Foundation Trust chief executive Nick Broughton, said: “The cyber attack targeted systems used to refer patients for care, including ambulances being dispatched, out-of-hours appointment bookings, triage, out-of-hours care, emergency prescriptions and safety alerts. It also targeted the finance system used by the Trust." The NHS director said: “The whole thing is down. It’s really alarming…we’re carrying a lot of risk as a result of it because you can’t get records and details of assessments, prescribing, key observations, medical mental health act observations. You can’t see any of it…Staff are going to have to write everything down and input it later.” They added: “There is increased risk to patients. We’re finding hard to discharge people, for example to housing providers, because we can’t access records.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 August 2022 -
News Article
NHS told to make better use of hospital passports to support patients
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Hospital passports need to be more consistently used across the NHS to better support patients with communication difficulties, a learning disability nurse says. Support for patients with communication needs and learning disabilities, as well as the nurses caring for them, is often ‘inconsistent’, according to RCN professional lead for learning disabilities Jonathan Beebee. Coupled with the current system-wide pressure of patient backlogs and high staff vacancy rates it means patients often do not have their communication needs met. A hospital passport, which contains vital information about a patient’s health condition, learning disability and communication needs, would help address this, Mr Beebee told Nursing Standard. "There has got to be better consistency in how we are identifying people with communication needs, how they are getting flagged and how nurses are being pointed to that from the second that someone is admitted to the ward," he said. Mr Beebee says ensuring a standardised approach would improve patient experience and ultimately nurses’ relationship with patients. Read full story Source: Nursing Standard, 27 July 2022 -
News Article
Hospital in meltdown over IT issues
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A whistleblower has warned a London hospital is "literally in meltdown" after its IT system was knocked out during last week's heatwave. Operations at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in Lambeth were cancelled after its IT servers broke down in 40C (104F) temperatures on 19 July. A doctor told the BBC "poor planning" and "chronic underfunding" meant issues remained a week later. A spokesperson for the hospital said IT issues were "having an ongoing impact". Without a functioning IT system, staff have returned to paper notes, the doctor said. The anonymous whistleblower, who works as a doctor at Guy's and St Thomas', said this meant "we see very worrying results, but we don't know where the patients are so we spend ages tracking them down". "We cannot read any historical notes from patients. Names are being misspelt, so scans are not showing up. "Each morning, someone hand-delivers a stack of test results to the ward. In there, we received several patient results that don't belong to our ward," the doctor said. "If we don't recover our shared drives, we risk losing months of research data, if not years." Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 July 2022 -
News Article
London NHS trust cancels operations as IT system fails in heatwave
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
One of the NHS’s biggest hospital trusts is facing major problems after its IT system failed because of the extreme temperatures earlier this week. Guy’s and St Thomas’ trust (GSTT) in London has had to cancel operations, postpone appointments and divert seriously ill patients to other hospitals in the capital as a result of its IT meltdown. The situation means that doctors cannot see patients’ medical notes remotely and are having to write down the results of all examinations by hand. They are also unable to remotely access the results of diagnostic tests such as X-rays and CT and MRI scans and are instead having to call the imaging department, which is overloading the department’s telephone lines. GSTT has declared the problem a “critical site incident”. It has apologised to patients and asked them to bring letters or other paperwork about their condition with them to their appointment to help overcome doctors’ loss of access to their medical history. One doctor at GSTT, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “This is having a major effect. We are back to using paper and can’t see any existing electronic notes. We are needing to triage basic tests like blood tests and scans. There’s no access to results apart from over the phone, and of course the whole hospital is trying to use that line. “Frankly, it’s a big patient safety issue and we haven’t been told how long it will take to fix. We are on divert for major specialist services such as cardiac, vascular and ECMO.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 July 2022 -
Content ArticleTimely written communication between primary and secondary healthcare providers is paramount to ensure effective patient care. In 2020, there was a technical issue between two interconnected electronic patient record (EPR) systems that were used by a large hospital trust and the local community partners. The trust provides healthcare to a diverse multiethnic inner-city population across three inner-city London boroughs from two extremely busy acute district general hospitals. Consequently, over a four-month period, 58,521 outpatient clinic letters were not electronically sent to general practitioners following clinic appointments. This issue affected 27.9% of the total number of outpatient clinic letters sent during this period and 42,251 individual patients. This paper from Patel et al. describes the structure, methodological process, and outcomes of the review process established to examine the harm that may have resulted due to the delay.
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News ArticleA new patient medical records system at a Spokane Veterans Affairs hospital in the US has caused nearly 150 cases of patient harm, according to a federal watchdog agency. An inspection by the VA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that a new Cerner electronic health record (EHR) system, now owned by Oracle, failed to deliver more than 11,000 orders for specialty care, lab work and other services at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center, the first VA facility to roll out the new technology. The OIG review found that the new EHR sent thousands of orders for medical care to an undetectable location, or unknown queue, instead of the intended care or service location, effectively causing the orders to disappear without letting clinicians know they weren't delivered. The intent of the unknown queue is to capture orders entered by providers that the new EHR cannot deliver to the intended location because the orders were not recognized as a “match” by the system, according to the VA watchdog. From facility go-live in October 2020 through June 2021, the new EHR failed to deliver more than 11,000 orders for requested clinical services. Those lost orders, often called referrals, resulted in delayed care and what a VA patient safety team classified as dozens of cases of "moderate harm" and one case of "major harm." The clinical reviewers conducted 1,286 facility event assessments and identified and classified 149 adverse events for patients. Read full story Source: Fierce Healthcare, 20 July 2022
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News ArticlePatients are at risk of a missed cancer diagnosis due to a reliance on paper records, an NHS trust has admitted after a man died due to his tumour being overlooked. Michael Lane, 50, from Shrewsbury, was “failed” by Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, his family has said after his cancer scan result was misplaced leaving him with a growing kidney tumour for 10 years. The trust is yet to fully launch an electronic record system a year after an investigation into Mr Lane’s death warned other patients were at risk due to the gap in paper records. Mr Lane went into Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital for a scan following a referral for suspected cancer in 2011. The radiographer flagged a small tumour but the scan was overlooked, placed within his paper records and never reported as being a concern. In an investigation report carried out by the trust in May 2021, seen by The Independent, the hospital admitted that had his tumour been seen and operated on earlier he may have survived. The report also admitted there were ongoing risks within the trust due to gaps in its electronic records system. It said: “The implementation of an IT solution will not prevent sad cases such as that of Mr Lane where the scan report that was missed took place before the widespread availability of such systems, however, it is clear that until we have an electronic requesting and sign-off system we remain at risk of new cases of missed results and harm occurring as a result of the ongoing reliance of paper-based results.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 17 July 2022
