Strategies to mitigate risks
What clinicians and/or administrators can do to promote
safe use of technology in health care?
safe use of technology in health care?
- Get involved in the design, development and implementation of technology in your own workplace emphasizing the critical need to involve stakeholders to effectively integrate technology into workflow
- Address Human Factors and work flow in order to at least minimize stakeholder dissonance, frustration and most importantly workarounds. Reviewing issues such as task management, multidisciplinary team working, risk perception and prediction, decision making and recognition of personal and technological limitations all contribute to a deeper understanding of error and have been shown to prevent error
- Emphasize the importance of customization of new technologies in the workplace as ALL technologies require a degree of customization to make them useable with an organization and practitioner input is vital for subsequent usability
- Get involved in the development of standards for the development of new systems
- Ensure that you and your staff are fully trained and competent in the use of any new technologies. Endorse the use of simulation and provide feedback regarding how any new technologies are performing in the workplace and how they could be improved
- Advocate for adequate financial and human resources for the implementation of new technologies
- Advocate for standardization of equipment, vendors and ongoing training on the use of new technologies
- Provide feedback on the implementation process and lessons learned for future consideration