Designing a clinical risk management model by the use of tagging technology

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Patient safety is one of the most important elements of quality of healthcare. It means preventing any harm to the patients during medical care process. . It is estimated that one of every 10 hospitalized patients in developing countries is faced with harm or injury resulted from medical errors. Various technologies have been used to risk management and improve patient safety until now. Aim The aim of this study was to develop an clinical risk management model by using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and pilot it in one ward of the hospital. Methods First the model software and hardware was developed based on RFID. Then this system was used in one of the wards of Tabriz University and Medical Sciences Teaching hospitals. Finally data collected and analyzed. Results Results show the electronic model of risk management based on RFID has ability to identify the clinical errors. In this study among 502 medical services performed for the patients which were evaluated with RFID technology, 40 errors were identified using this technology and 29 errors among the 479 services was identified by direct observation. Conclusion Using this system in the clinical setting, it is possible to identify clinical errors and helps nurses to reduce them. It can also be a useful tool for clinical risk management and patient safety in hospitals. Using this device can improve the patient safety to a considerable extent and thus improve the quality of healthcare. Keywords Clinical Risk Management; Patient Safety; Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)