Patient Safety

Few Sundays ago we were privileged enough to be invited by Dr. Nikhil Datar, a pre-eminent gynecologist and medico-legal expert to witness his premier talk on Patient Safety. It was hosted by IMA Dombivali and had a strong audience of over 40 doctors waiting to hear Dr. Datar’s talk. Dr. Datar had recently returned from UK where he attended a program organized by WHO on Patient Safety. Plus91 Technologies believes in making patient centric solutions which don’t just automate the clinic or hospital but also improve quality and service. Keeping this in mind, the presentation was interesting not just for the doctors but also for us.

The doctors were interested in the talk, intrigued by what new information can they hear. It started slowly but filled with practical examples the doctors soon were eager to know more. More than that they realized in their own practice they need to reflect and close loopholes so that they ensure patient safety. The doctors really got involved with questions, interactive cases and videos. We think they all walked out little bit wiser. As a software company involved in Healthcare, we think patient safety becomes a vital cog in what we are doing and it works at multiple levels. 1. Creating solutions which ensure and promote safety, 2. using the patient safety angle to promote such solutions which benefit the doctor in many more ways, but they finally see it as useful when something hard hitting as this is spoken about and 3. Increasing patient interaction and service allowing patients to feel safer and learn on how they should protect themselves too.

So what all does patient safety entail? It covers a lot of ground from something simple like washing your hands before a physical examination to something complicated as giving instructions during a high pressure surgery. They key learning was awareness that things can go wrong and improving communications and processes to prevent minor errors from becoming major issues. Simple techniques like reading medicine names allowed, using color coding on various instruments, storing patient records in a neat and systematic manner help provide better quality care to the patient. We think from hearing his talk, the biggest initiative one can take in improving patient safety is increasing ones awareness in their surroundings. Being aware of the possibility and the effects of your actions goes a long way in preventing mishaps that can happen. Some major inferences were: Out of the 3.7% cases, only 1% could be called as negligent, 50% of these are preventable and most notable – majority of them were not individual failures but the system failures.

We think a lot of good work is now being done in this field by numerous players. The ones which Plus91 Technologies is directly involved with include Dr. Nikhil Datar an epxert in the field, PIET (Patient Information and Education Trust) and NGO, PEAS (Patient Education and Awareness Series) who make wonderful videos and content driven education material, HELP (Healthcare Education Library for People) which have seminars weekly apart from the actual library initiative and Dr. Malpani who is organizing a conference in October in Mumbai exclusively dealing with Patient Safety. As technology pervades healthcare, we can already envision so many places where Plus91 can actively help improve patient safety standards. The possibilities are exciting not only in their scope and challenge but also because this is probably one place we can actually be able to claim we saved a life and that thought gives us a tremendous boost.