'An effective patient safety reporting system is the cornerstone of safe practice'
Switch to electronic system increases safety reporting, efficiency
Tuesday December 23, 2008 -- Natalie Miller
A web-based system is increasing the number of patient safety reports staff submit at St. Joseph's Health Centre Toronto.

Patient safety managers Nadine Agard and Lisa O'Drowsky say the web-based system is accessible to all employees and initially resulted in a 117 per cent increase in patient safety reports in its first year of introduction when compared to the original paper-based model.

"The main reason for the switch to the web-based system was usability and timeliness," says Agard.

"Follow-up can happen simultaneously. The main focus was to increase reporting of events in a timely way."

The system makes it easier for staff to report events and has built-in elements including a component that thanks users for submitting their reports. When more reports are made, it builds a safer culture for patients, they say.

''An effective patient safety reporting system is the cornerstone of safe practice and, thus, a measure of progress toward achieving a safety culture."

O'Drowsky says at around the same time St. Joseph's introduced the initial version of the web-based reporting system the patient safety movement was gaining momentum in Canada. So the new system tied in well with the hospital's efforts to build a culture where patient safety resonated on the front-lines.

However, after the first year of its introduction, the second year results in terms of the number of events reported dropped.

"In year two, the number of reports declined by three per cent coupled with staff feedback that the system was 'long, daunting and blaming.'"

Mistakes in clinical practice are seldom isolated events but if they are not talked about openly, the events will continue to occur because there has not been the opportunity to put the proper fixes in place, Agard and O'Drowsky explain.

"The declining number of reports and waning staff satisfaction, presented us with a tremendous quality improvement opportunity. The aim of this project was to make changes to affect the efficiency and culture of adverse event reporting."

Agard and O'Drowsky embraced the chance to improve the system by making it more user-friendly and changing the language used.

Read about the impact these changes made in an upcoming article on the website.

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