Analytics in Healthcare and the Life Sciences: Strategies, Implementation Methods, and Best Practices

14. Improving Patient Safety Using Clinical Analytics

Dean F. Sittig and Stephan Kudyba

Clinical analytics, coupled with the data extracted from real-time, point-of-care electronic health record systems, has the potential to significantly increase patient safety through the use of “triggers” or computer-based algorithms that automatically identify patterns in data that suggest errors have occurred in healthcare-related activities. This chapter describes research currently being conducted to identify three different types of errors in 1) medical diagnosis, 2) medication administration, and 3) use of electronic health records (EHRs). Using these new analytic measurement systems, researchers can better evaluate the effect of the myriad health information ...