Citation

Scagliarini M, Boccaforno N, Donati R, Vandi M, Ponti E, Nanni S. Health Technol. (Berl) 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

2Azienda Unità Sanitaria Locale della Romagna, Viale Settembrini 2, 47923 Rimini, Italy.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s12553-020-00433-6

PMID

32406425

PMCID

PMC7217620

Abstract

Patient safety is a great concern of healthcare institutions and the correct reporting and management of adverse events is a key element for supporting safety improvement efforts. Patient falls are the most frequent adverse event in hospitals and often cause serious patient outcomes. In this work, we describe the experience of the Local Healthcare Authority of Romagna, Italy that, within the framework of a quality and safety improvement programme, designed, developed and implemented a desktop application for monitoring inpatient falls. A multidisciplinary team created a software tool based on R, an open source software for statistical computing that, appropriately combined with the existing hospital information system, is used to obtain Shewhart u-control charts for monitoring the monthly fall rates. The tool had been implemented in twenty nine hospital units. The results indicate that the proposed application gave a valuable contribution in the safety improvement activities. Its usefulness extended beyond the "safety problem" as it also enabled hospital managers to identify a number of critical issues in data collection. As a result, where necessary, improvement actions had been implemented. Furthermore, the use of open source software led to a considerable cost reduction and facilitated customization of the software tool.

© IUPESM and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020.

Language: en

Keywords

Adverse events; Control charts; Desktop application; Hospital information system; Patient safety