Improving our health by translating research evidence into local NHS practice

Theme 9

Improving patient safety: studying an evolving IT system

Theme Lead Professor Bernard Cheung, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Birmingham
Jamie Coleman, Consultant in Clinical Pharmacology, University Hospital Birmingham

Patient safety has become a top agenda item in the organisational thinking of many healthcare systems. Avoidable harm has been a focus of attention, and key policy targets in the health service exist specifically aimed at: medication errors, healthcare associated infections, ‘poor quality care’, and other potentially harmful interventions. With the advances in medical technology over the past decades has come the potential for new therapies and therefore greater benefits to our patients. Information technology in healthcare specifically allows organisations to improve the safety and quality of medical care in new and exciting ways.

Up until now the National Health Service (NHS) has been a late and slow adopter of technology compared to other industries and some healthcare institutions in other parts of the world (for example North America). With the implementation of more systems related to NHS Connecting for Health (formerly the National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT)) in England, the widespread adoption of technology in the NHS is gaining pace. The rollout and adoption of the technology is slower than some clinicians and patients may have hoped, and although systems have been adopted in many organisations, their acceptance is not necessarily assured. Some organisations have also adopted other systems outside the current scope of Connecting for Health or developed their own systems that are not yet within scope. University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust is one such institution that has developed their own system particularly focused at electronic prescribing (ahead of the planned CfH system rollout), and it is this system that forms the central component of this research activity. More