Improving Health Care and Patient Safety at the ICU by Using Innovative Medical Devices and ICT Tools: Examples from Bangladesh

Authors: Mannan Mridha, Mohammad S. Islam

Abstract:

Innovative medical technologies offer more effective medical care, with less risk to patient and healthcare personnel. Medical technology and devices when properly used provide better data, precise monitoring and less invasive treatments and can be more targeted and often less costly. The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) equipped with patient monitoring, respiratory and cardiac support, pain management, emergency resuscitation and life support devices is particularly prone to medical errors for various reasons. Many people in the developing countries now wonder whether their visit to hospital might harm rather than help them. This is because; clinicians in the developing countries are required to maintain an increasing workload with limited resources and absence of well-functioning safety system. A team of experts from the medical, biomedical and clinical engineering in Sweden and Bangladesh have worked together to study the incidents, adverse events at the ICU in Bangladesh. The study included both public and private hospitals to provide a better understanding for physical structure, organization and practice in operating processes of care, and the occurrence of adverse outcomes the errors, risks and accidents related to medical devices at the ICU, and to develop a ICT based support system in order to reduce hazards and errors and thus improve the quality of performance, care and cost effectiveness at the ICU. Concrete recommendations and guidelines have been made for preparing appropriate ICT related tools and methods for improving the routine for use of medical devices, reporting and analyzing of the incidents at the ICU in order to reduce the number of undetected and unsolved incidents and thus improve the patient safety.

Keywords: Accidents reporting system, patient car and safety, safe medical devices.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1317400

References:

[1] A. R. Aitkenhead, et al. International standards for safety in the intensive care unit, Intensive Care Med (1993) 19:178-181.
[2] Linda T. Kohn, Janet M. Molla S. Donaldson, Editors (2000) To Err is Human, Building a Safer Health System, Committee on Quality of Health Care in America.
[3] Thomas Gale (2007) Victory for ICU safety: the implementation of a critical care software system improves information management in the ICU of a VA healthcare network.
[4] David C. Stockwell, Anthony D. Slonim (2006) Quality and Safety in the Intensive Care Unit, Journal of Intensive Care Medicine, Vol. 21, No. 4, 199-210 (2006).
[5] Worthley (2000) Quality control, audit, adverse events and risk in the intensive care unit, Critical care and resuscitation 2000, 2, 304-7.
[6] Atack, L., Luke, R., Sanderson, D. Development of an online, team-based programme in telecare. Journal of telemedicine and Telecare.2004; 10: 355-360.
[7] Peter J Pronovost (2004) How clinicians measure safety and quality in acute care? The Lancet.vol 363, March 27, 2004AAMI/FDA.