Maintaining the highest standards of Patient Safety is a constant issue for all healthcare providers. The biggest contributor to serious mistakes being made is human error, taking the wrong unit from the fridge or miss-identification of the patient and or blood unit at the patient’s bedside. Hospital staff are reliant on paper-based solutions and in a busy hospital, processes are not always followed that can lead to patients being put at risk. Official NHS statistics have revealed instances of hospital staff putting vulnerable patients at risk have risen. Increased strains on hospitals, such as staff shortages and cuts in the NHS, could be making staff more likely to make errors.
The number of cases in which NHS England recorded a patient whose health was deteriorating received “sub-optimal” care has more than doubled in the past two years, from 260 in 2013/14 to 588 in 2015/16. In the same time frame, diagnostic incidents – either a delayed diagnosis or an NHS worker not acting on test results – rose from 654 to 923.
The annual SHOT report (Serious Hazards of Transfusion) from 2016 reported “the pattern of reports in 2016 was much the same as in previous years, however the absolute number and percentage related to error has increased; 87.0%, 2688/3091. Similarly 98.1% of serious adverse event (SAE) reports to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) resulted from error.
The number of ABO-incompatible red cell transfusions has continued to reduce with 3 reported in 2016 but there were nevertheless 264 near misses which could have resulted in incompatible transfusions had they not been detected.
Blood360 helps to remove human error by ensuring Hospital staff follow a process, positively identify patients as well as observe and detect deteriorating patients. Blood360 tracks, records and monitors every activity giving you the confidence that the process you set are followed and staff that need more training or assistance are highlighted.
