DoctorQuality Concurs With American Heart Association Report `IT Use Could Curb Medical Errors' - Nearly 100 Facilities Nationwide Use DoctorQuality's RPM SystemDoctorQuality Offers Tips for Healthcare Leaders Dedicated to Spearheading Innovative Patient Safety Initiatives PHILADELPHIA, PA, Nov. 19, 2002 -- DoctorQuality, Inc.(TM) is enthusiastic about a just released American Heart Association report which found that physicians' widespread use of computer physician order entry and other Information Technology (IT) applications to improve drug ordering, dispensing and tracking processes could improve patient care and reduce the number of adverse events. DoctorQuality(TM), an Internet-based healthcare information services company founded with a mission for patient safety, has contracted with more than 100 national healthcare sites for its Risk Prevention and Management System (RPM). DoctorQuality's CEO John Gebhart, says, "We concur with the American Heart Association and commend them for bringing to the forefront the vast potential for improving adverse events by matching IT needs with health care organizations." DoctorQuality offers an integrated suite of products developed by healthcare veterans that identify, track and analyze medical adverse events and near misses, and provide comparative and benchmarking capabilities that permit proactive implementation of best practices and improvements in healthcare safety overall. Says Gebhart, "As of November 18, 2002, the RPM acute care institutions have reported 46,898 adverse or potentially adverse events, or 1.3 adverse events/per day/per site. Analysis of this data shows that 35 percent of the reported errors were clinical events, while medication errors represented 34 percent. These numbers are unacceptable! Once we can help identify the distribution and impact of adverse or potentially adverse events, the organizations adopt system improvements and best practices to reverse their medical error experience." Jane Freedman, MD, a member of the American Heart Association's Committee on Acute Cardiac Care and lead author of the report, says, "We need to figure out how to best police errors and develop a system to evaluate how big a problem medical errors are in cardiac care." DoctorQuality offers the following recommendations for healthcare leaders dedicated to spearheading innovative patient safety initiatives: -- Leadership must make a meaningful commitment to quality and patient safety -- direct involvement, resource support, and barrier removal are essential -- Stop debating the definitions and the concepts and try changes -- Create a culture of change and urgency -- Use simple measures of success and then gradually build -- increase in error reporting; reduced time to resolution -- Create an open-book data philosophy -- not controlled by risk management -- Feedback of patient safety data -- what is being done with the information -- Providing financial and non-financial incentives or error reporting -- Success is predicated more upon effective execution than development DoctorQuality provides hospitals, long-term care and rehabilitation facilities with a suite of products that aid in improving quality of care. About DoctorQuality, Inc.(TM) DoctorQuality, Inc. (DQ) provides hospitals, long-term care and rehabilitation facilities with a suite of products that aid in improving quality of care. Founded with a mission for patient safety, DoctorQuality's tool set provides real-time analysis of a healthcare system's processes of care. Unlike basic tracking systems, DoctorQuality offers an integrated suite of products developed by healthcare veterans that identify, track and analyze medical adverse events and near misses, and provide comparative and benchmarking capabilities that permit proactive implementation of best practices and improvements in healthcare safety overall. Together with its more than 100 clients, DQ has built the largest known database of medical adverse event and near misses for employers and health plans. The company's web site is http://www.doctorquality.com. --30--jd/mi*
CONTACT: Frank Public Relations, Weston, Fla.
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