Services of health care are offered to patients within a setting with complex interactions between many factors, for instance, the process of disease, technology, clinicians, procedures, resources, and policies (Wakefield, 2008). Whenever these complex issues or factors interact, unanticipated and harmful outcomes, for instance errors, may occur. Safety systems within health care structure seek to prevent or avert harm to patients, health care professionals, volunteers, their friends and families, and other people whose responsibilities bring them into the environment of health care. Safety is one feature of quality, in which quality involve avoiding preventable harm and making appropriate health care available; offering effective services to individuals who can benefit from such services and avoiding harmful or ineffective services (Wakefield, 2008).
Physician groups and hospitals functioning independently, and always offering health care without the advantage of complete information about the condition of patient or medical history, medication given or prescribed by other care givers, or services offered within other settings is still in practice within some hospitals. Nonetheless, hospitals have effectively transitioned to the new rule of health care founded on continuous healing relationship (Wakefield, 2008). Patients receive health care whenever they require it and in a number of forms, not merely face-to-face visits. The rule means that systems of health care are responsive twenty four hours in a day, and that health care may be accessed by telephone, over the internet, and through other ways apart from face-to-face visits (Plawecki & Amrhein 2009).
Informatics has helped in advancing health care safety within healthcare organizations in a number of ways; information systems and computers create safe systems by advancing access to information, increasing vigilance, reducing dependence on memory, and helping in standardization of processes. Moreover, informatics provide drug data databases which are applied to enhance drug prescription, computerized provider or supplier order entry with incorporated decision support, automatic dispensing technologies involving bar coding of drugs dispensed, and automatic surveillance to prevent and monitor adverse drug events are possible due to informatics.
References
Plawecki, L. H., & Amrhein, D. W. (2009). Clearing the err. Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 35(11), 26–29.
Wakefield, M. K. (2008). The Quality Chasm series: Implications for nursing. In R. G. Hughes (Ed.), Patient safety and quality: An evidence-based handbook for nurses (Vol. 1, pp. 47–66). Rockville, MD: U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved from http://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/clinicians-providers/resources/nursing/nurseshdbk/WakefieldM_QCSIN.pdf
