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Running Head: PATIENT SAFETY 1

PATIENT SAFETY 2

 According to Merriam-Webster “To Err is Human” means that it is normal for people to make mistakes (Merriam-Webster, 2019). The Institute of Medicine (IOM) wanted to bring to light what was going on in the industry and start to make strides to fixing these problems. They wanted to say that health professionals are not perfect and we need to invest time and money into researching how we can help them to improve the overall quality of life of the patients seeking treatment. By the IOM using this statement they pushed this agenda as a public health concern, this in turn created a big buzz around health quality and safety leading to policy shifts in health services (Brown, Pasupathy & Patrick, 2019, pp.80-81).The reports published by IOM further helped to solidify that there was a need for new techniques and technology to help clinical functions. This lead to a new wave of IT involvement that was never before thought of. IOM’s push for this IT aspect in healthcare moved the government to make mandates and incentives for health organizations. These organizations had to adopt these systems and it moved the trajectory of health information technology from something that would speed up processes, to systems that are fully integrated into delivery of care.

          When you go into a hospital now everything is digitized and recorded, you are unable to move through the process of caring for a patient without the involvement of health information tech. This change in trajectory lead to inventions that helped to stop countless deaths. The data that is collect also continues to help researchers and developers come up with safer ways of care. There are systems in place that can use the inputted data to monitor for human error when trying to dispense medicine to the patient. Letting the health professional know if they are giving too much or not enough. The goals of the IOM was to implement three important strategies which where to prevent, recognize and mitigate harm from error. They quickly realized that they would need a system change not just giving the information to the doctors so they can correct their actions for next time. IOM called for congress to create a National Center for Patient Safety within the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Here they could develop new tools to help reduce the harm from errors (Donaldson, 2008). Overall, health information’s course changed from the date the report by IOM was published its new direction was one that had a stronger backing and understood that “To Err is Human” so the focus needs to be on how to reduce the harm caused by this error and that health information technology will be at the forefront of that.  

References

Brown, G., Pasupathy, K., & Patrick, T. (2019). The Coming of the Corporation: Transforming Clinical Work Processes. In Health informatics: a systems perspective (pp. 80-81). Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.

Donaldson, M. S. (2008). An Overview of To Err is Human: Re-emphasizing the Message of Patient Safety. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2673/

Merriam-Webster. (2019). To Err Is Human. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/to err is human