Improving Patient Safety by Reusing Clinical Routine Data - An Expert Survey on Patient Safety Indicators.
BACKGROUND
Patient safety is an important issue and receiving increasing attention. Information technology (IT) and IT-based strategies as the secondary use of already existing data within hospital information systems can help to improve patient safety.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate experts' knowledge and opinions regarding relevant patient safety problems, their measurability in existing clinical routine data and potential challenges in the field. We also wanted to get an overview of already deployed indicators for patient safety.


METHODS
Semi structured interviews with 20 experts from different healthcare domains were conducted and analyzed using a qualitative content analysis methodology.


RESULTS
The expert interviews offered a deeper insight into patient safety and quarried relevant patient safety problems including possibilities to measure them. The most often mentioned indicators were infection, complication and pressure ulcer.


CONCLUSION
From an experts' perspective there are several challenges but equally a high potential for improving patient safety by the use of health IT.
['Schaller|Michael|M|', 'Hackl|Werner O|WO|', 'Ammenwerth|Elske|E|']
D003695:Delivery of Health Care D006751:Hospital Information Systems D006801:Humans D008490:Medical Informatics D061214:Patient Safety D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
Patient Safety Health Information Systems Qualitative Research