Contributed by Kristie Sivells

PHILADELPHIA – Information technology could prevent many medical errors that occur in hospitals today, says Linda H. Aiken, but without an accompanying change in staffing, training and culture changes, the promise of IT will not be fully realized.
Aiken, a nurse with a Doctorate’s degree, is a professor of nursing and sociology and the director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Introducing an expensive and sophisticated IT system into a poor care environment with inadequate nurse staffing will undermine the potential of information technology for quality improvement,” Aiken said in a Webcast last month presented by Siemens Medical Solutions.
Aiken revealed some early findings regarding the effect of nurse burnout and inadequate nurse staffing on patient safety. The result of the study correlates a high nurse-to-patient ratio to better care.
She said research at the University of Pennsylvania shows that close to half of hospital staff nurses score in the high burnout range using standard measures. There has been no reduction in burnout, she said, since 1999, when the Institute of Medicine called for a 50 percent reduction in medical errors by 2004 – a goal that was not met.
Gail E. Latimer, vice president and chief nursing officer at Siemens, said the research would prove helpful in informing the discussions and policy-making as healthcare organizations continue to work toward a reduction of medical errors using IT and other measures.
Aiken divided medical errors into two categories – active errors that result from incorrect actions by nurses and latent errors derived from poor management decisions, understaffing, nurse burn-out and organizational culture.
Information technology applications can reduce many of the active errors, Aiken said.
“Information technology enables every nurse to base their practice on evidence,” she said. “Active errors, we know, can be prevented by information technology applications that allow information to be accessed easily (such as an electronic health record) and applications that support standardized processes of care that provide the kinds of protocols and easy access to protocols that can guide care.”
IT applications, such as electronic medical records, make it possible to access information easily and support standardized care, she said.
“In a complex world, that we are all practicing in, there’s too much knowledge now for any of us to hold in our heads.” Aiken said. “There are new tools that provide the opportunity to make great strides. The promise of IT is just dramatic in the whole arena in helping us to prevent active errors as a result of incorrect action.”