Theme 5: Safe systems

Safe systemsThe Safe Systems theme aims to address some of the main safety challenges facing healthcare systems today. The main drivers for this theme are the increasing complexity of healthcare delivery and the challenges of designing safe pathways of care across teams and organisations.  This theme uses a variety of methods including qualitative methods and quasi-experimental research designs.  

 

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Watch Professor Bryony Dean Franklin talk about SHINE project to improve patient safety through feedback on prescribing errors.

Our multidisciplinary approach sees pharmacists, medical and nursing staff, healthcare managers and infection prevention specialists working together to address major sources of preventable patient harm such as avoidable adverse drug events, healthcare associated infections and surgical complications, and to improve the quality of care of older medical patients.  This theme also synergises with the work in other themes; research projects and the associated outputs often span several themes.

 

Translational examples

The Prescribing Improvement Model

The Prescribing Improvement Model aimed to improve feedback provided by pharmacists to Foundation Year 1 (FY1) doctors on their prescribing errors.  The initial development work, partly funded by The Health Foundation, led to a three-part intervention developed from our research on prescribing errors and barriers to feedback.  The original study saw interventions introduced at one hospital site, with a second acting as the control.  Key outcomes from the project included:

  • Improved identification of FY1 doctors from their medication orders (from less than 10% to about 50%).
  • Small but significant increased rate of reduction in prescribing errors on the intervention site.
  • Increased engagement of FY1s in the safe prescribing agenda.
  • Enhanced learning for FY1s from shared learning.
  • Improved confidence and ability of pharmacists to provide effective feedback to doctors.

The study received much positive feedback and has since been rolled out by Imperial College Health Partners (the Academic Health Science Network for North West London) across acute trusts in North West London.

Projects

Current

Completed