‘Innovation and ICTs: instruments at the service of patient safety’. This was the title of the talk by Tino Martí, head of the Fundació TicSalut international area, with which he opened the 6th Patient and Medicine Safety Monographic Meeting, which analysed the role of new technologies in the safe use of medicines.
“Today it is not possible to deal with patient safety without information technologies”, assured Martí. In this sense, he pointed out the advantages and the importance of the correct introduction of ICT: “It increases productivity and quality and favours structured innovation and transformation of processes”. However, Martí stressed that the use of technology in the social area is in need of improvement.
There is still, therefore, some way to go also in the sense of analysing the influence of ICTs on patient safety. “It is important to assess the impact in certain aspects that depend on numerous factors”, Martí said, indicating that technology might not be positive in some processes such as the correct identification of a patient or the selection of a particular medicine in a specific group of population.
Image: Tino Martí during his presentation.
The meeting, which was organised by the Department of Health and the Catalan Pharmacy Society, was attended by around 200 people, mostly pharmacy professionals, healthcare professionals and staff of the public administration. The meeting therefore also tabled the principal challenges, concerns and points for improvement in the sector, all together to improve and give the service more quality and to avoid possible errors and their consequences.
‘Patient Safety 3.0: The role of ICT and social networks’ meeting (FIDISP)
With the same objective, the Foundation for Research, Teaching and Innovation in Patient Safety (FIDISP) held the ‘Patient Safety 3.0: The role of ICT and social networks’ meeting. The event took place in Madrid on the past Thursday 7 May and served for reflection on the use of Information and Communication Technologies and the Social Networks in reducing healthcare risks.
Healthcare professionals, health journalists and people responsible for entities related to the sector took part in a meeting which also dealt with the challenges of the new situation. “The ever more daily use of the social networks between professionals and patients opens up a new field which has a positive influence on the healthcare environment and on improving health”, the program announced.
The speakers included Cristina Herrera Garcia, who presented the Ippok.com network for healthcare professionals, Blanca Fernández-Lasquetty Blanc, who tabled the effect of maintaining data confidentiality in this environment, and Javier Jiménez Díaz, who assured that “it is an error to think that the social networks are a problem for the healthcare institutions”. The closing talk presented the success case of the use of social networks by the General Directorate for Traffic in improving road safety.
The raising of the awareness of the sector on this new form of interrelating and maintaining fluid communication with patients is clear; that meetings such as the above should work on guaranteeing that this new situation avoids the possible risks and favours the correct operation of the system and shows the professional willingness to evolve, to grow and to use all possible means for better assistance.
Subscriu-te i rep cada mes novetats i notícies al teu email