While most hospitals have reporting systems in place, many could stand for improvement in some areas. In a whitepaper, The Greeley Company identified the following four areas as those most reporting systems could be improve.
• Redesigning the problem identification process. A process for indentifying problems and resolving them must have the following five key areas implemented, according to the whitepaper:
- Identification
2. Screening
3. Analysis
4. Prioritizing and tracking actions
5. Evaluating and communicating success
“If any of these areas are not working effectively, or if they are not managed as an integrated approach, the organization will not get full value for its efforts,” according to the whitepaper.
• Increasing participation. Hospitals should strive for an increasing number of reports with decreasing severity of each report. However, not every employee properly reports all incidents. According to The Greeley Company, there are for main reasons employees don’t report incidents:
- Feeling overburdened
2. Worrying about blame
3. Thinking no action will be taken
4. Worrying that necessary action will be assigned to them and increase their workload
• The screening process. Increased volume of reports necessitates a more effective screening process. “We must be able to quickly identify important events and begin more detailed cause analysis of those that meet the screening criteria,” the whitepaper states.
• The trend analysis and triggering process. Hospitals need to be able to collect and analyze data for areas that may need attention. Improving this area is especially important once the volume of reports increases.
