Integrating Incident Reporting into an Electronic Patient Record System
- Guy Hallera,b,e,
- Paul S Mylesa,b,d,
- Johannes Stoelwinderb,c,
- Mark Langleya,
- Hugh Andersona,
- John McNeilb,d
- aDepartment of Anesthesia & Perioperative Medicine Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
- bDepartment of Epidemiology & Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
- cHealth Services Management and Research Unit, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
- dNHMRC Centre for Clinical Research Excellence, Canberra, Australia
- eDepartment of Anesthesia & Intensive Care/Quality of Care Unit, Geneva University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland
- Correspondence and reprints: Guy Haller, MD, Department of Anesthesia & Intensive Care, Quality of Care Unit, Geneva University Hospital, 24, rue Micheli-du-Crest, 1211 Genève 14-Switzerland; (e-mail: <Guy.Haller{at}hcuge.ch>)
- Received 6 July 2006
- Accepted 12 December 2006
Abstract
Developments in information technology offer new opportunities to design electronic patient record systems (EPR) which integrate a broad range of functions such as clinical decision support, order entry, or electronic alerts. It has been recently suggested that EPR could support new applications for disease surveillance and patient safety. We describe the integration of a voluntary incident reporting system into an EPR used in operating theatres, to allow the reporting of accidents and preventable complications. We assessed system’s reliability and users’ acceptance. During the 4-years observation period (2002-2006), 48,983 interventional procedures were performed. Clinicians documented 85.1% of procedures on the incident reporting form. Agreement between chart review and electronically reported incidents was 80.6%. The integration of an incident reporting system into an EPR is reliable and well supported by health care professionals.
Footnotes
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The funding required for this project was obtained from the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Count Eugenio Litta Foundation, and a Monash University Postgraduate Research Scholarship (for Dr Haller). Dr Myles is supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Practitioner’s Fellowship. Authors acknowledge the support received for this project.
