Using Technology to Improve Patient Safety at Point of Care

Medical error reduction and patient safety continue to be topics in the forefront of the public, health care providers, and point-of-care and laboratory professionals. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations developed national patient safety goals to focus the attention of health care providers, and the president signed the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act to define better, without the threat of recrimination, what works and does not work in error reduction. The inclusion of corrective technology, particularly with glucose meters used at the point of care, has evolved and will continue to address and eliminate many of the “human factors” that potentially cause error and impact patient safety. The future advances for device technologies are all about gathering and disseminating information for better decision making and patient care. Informatics will bring diverse groups of providers in the health care system together to play an important role in data management and patient protocols. In the future, informatics technology will define the quality of care that should lead to improved patient care, better optimization of resources, and reduced errors.