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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – The sheer amount of terminology that’s been batted back and forth by pundits, politicians and healthcare experts is enough to make anyone’s head spin. But one of the key components of a good healthcare system – a component that is frequently mentioned in speeches and policy debates, but rarely discussed in detail – is patient safety.
To a healthcare professional, patient safety means taking extra measures to provide your patients with the safest clinical care possible. However, we sometimes forget that it also means caring for your patients in a way that will prevent health problems from occurring in the future. Patient safety can also have tremendous financial incentives; by dramatically reducing the risk of error and the likelihood of return hospital visits, patient safety initiatives can reduce the cost of medical malpractice claims and lower premiums. It seems that focusing on patient safety can lower healthcare costs for everyone: patients, doctors, hospital administrators, and insurance companies. If patient safety becomes a top priority nationwide, the quality of clinical care will improve dramatically, and the cost of healthcare will decrease.
PeriGen, an OB-risk reduction company, has taken patient safety to unique and innovative levels. PeriGen designs clinical decision support solutions that span the continuum of OB care from prenatal to fetal monitoring and labor and delivery and post partum care. PeriBirth™, PeriGen’s OB-specific clinical decision support system (CDSS) actually helps clinicians to make the best possible decisions about patient care by integrating a medical knowledge base, patient data and artificial intelligence.
PeriBirth is the only CDSS, or artificial intelligence system, of its kind in OB, and runs on a regular computer at the patient’s bedside. It monitors the mother’s and baby’s changing conditions during childbirth, incorporating the mother’s specific medical history and giving real-time prompts, alerts, and suggestions to the clinical team. For example, PeriBirth flags many common but potentially harmful labor and delivery occurrences such as dangerous medication interactions and subtle changes in baby’s condition such as heart beat patterns.
PeriGen’s clinical decision support systems are currently at work in over 100 hospitals across North America. Responding to the changing conditions of the patient in real-time, the system mitigates risks associated with labor and delivery.
Having this artificial intelligence system in the labor and delivery suite makes the childbearing process safer for both the mother and the baby. Scientific literature shows that up to 50% of OB birth traumas that occur in the U.S. each year are potentially avoidable1. Even under perfect conditions, childbirth can be a high-risk medical event. In reality, the risks are exacerbated by the difficult working conditions of doctors and nurses. Today, hospitals are understaffed, and clinicians are tired, stressed, and overworked, and they are forced to multitask, caring for multiple patients at one time. These conditions can increase the likelihood of clinical error, which can result in tragic consequences. PeriGen’s patient data from over 300,000 births indicates that on a quarterly basis, up to 8% of potential errors are avoided when an action or order is cancelled or changed in response to a PeriBirth alert, providing a safer, healthier childbirth experience for both mothers and their babies.
We are all painfully aware that the financial consequences of medical malpractice in OB are enormous. For many women, the threat of malpractice and the high cost of insurance means obstetricians may be on short supply in states where it is just too expensive for them to continue to practice. PeriGen’s solutions not only improve the quality of patient care, they are actually proven to reduce the cost of medical malpractice claims and lower premiums as well: one PeriGen client reduced its paid cost of claims by over $5 million per year, and yet another, MedStar Health, a hospital network that implemented PeriBirth five years ago, recaptured their total investment in the system in less than two years.
By reducing the incidence of complications, PeriGen improves clinical outcomes – providing a healthy start for babies who may not have otherwise had one. It is important that we give babies a safe and healthy start today, so that they might avoid countless health problems in the future.
Patient safety should be a priority in the national debate on healthcare reform. It is a critical component in transforming the quality of care provided to patients. By employing CDSS across all healthcare specialties, like many hospitals have chosen to do in Obstetrics with the PeriBirth system, we can help to ensure the safest, healthiest clinical environment for all of our patients– even the smallest, right from the start.
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