Errors have huge costs on the Medical Profession, as well as other non-medical Personal Services. Errors rob us of our health, money, time, and work satisfaction. Error Reduction is a key feature of the System to reduce errors that are common today, plus mitigate potential errors with the System’s implementation of driving down costs and increasing the capabilities and reach of Healthcare.

 

The following are some of the benefits that can be obtained by driving down error rates:

 

• Improved Diagnosis to correctly identify issues earlier and provide more accurate treatment

 

• Proper Treatments at the right times, with monitoring to see if any unexpected issues occur

 

• Less Impact of the Patient’s Health due to incorrect treatments

 

• Less Time and Paperwork in dealing with errors and retraining, and more time performing Healthcare

 

• Less Medical and Legal Costs in dealing with errors

 

• Reductions in Medical Liability Insurance by reducing errors

 

• Better Drug, Treatment, and Device Trials by having less errors, monitored baselines, and audit trails

 

There are many different System Features that can drive down error rates.

 

Improved Diagnosis and Testing

 

• An Identity and Information Feature to assist in the identification and storage and sharing of data associated with an individual to make sure the best and latest information about the individual is available

 

• Intelligent Adaptive Examination Decision Tree Application (interactive test and examination recommendations, data collection, and analysis associated with diagnostics) <Read More>

  • Wide use of detailed Patient Baselines and History

  • Thorough Examination and Test Decision Trees based on wide review and updates by many Doctors with feedback collected on recommended changes

  • Latest information about Regional Issues

 

• Native language instructions, input, and translation tools to improve communication, instructions,  and understanding between providers and patients

 

• Low cost networked personal monitoring devices to collect additional data that could have impact on the individuals health or treatments

 

• Tools to encourage the involvement of Family, Guardians, Friends, Social Advocacy Groups, Call Centers, etc. in assisting in the monitoring, feedback, and technology directed assistance in filling out questionnaires on individual’s health and history

 

• Technology testing and capture of data to prevent recording errors plus check results against patient baseline and average/max/min for age/sex/etc.  to alert of any potential misreads

 

• Self-diagnosing medical devices to track errors, and any repair or calibration needs

 

Proper Treatment Verification

 

• The use of tools to verify patient identity, listed treatment, dosage, prescription, and doctor to make sure the treatments are correct

 

• Cross treatment analysis for the patient to make sure there are not any incompatibilities

 

• Sanity check on dosage(TBR)

 

• Use of Role Based Scheduling, reminders, escalations, verification, and audit to make sure that treatments are provided when they need to be

 

• Technology capture of data against baselines to identify and alert of any notable changes based on treatments being given to an individual

 

• Native language instructions, input, and translation tools to improve communication, instructions,  and understanding between providers and patients

 

• Full audit capabilities to verify things are being done correctly, quickly find error patterns or mistreatments (by a specific provider, type of treatment,  etc.) as well as identify further process improvements to drive down error rates

 

Less Impact of the Patient’s Health

 

• Less complications associated with misdiagnosis and treatments

 

• Less time in treatment

 

Reduced Costs

 

• Less Time and Paperwork associated with processing mistakes, their review, and remedy

 

• Fewer procedures and examinations to correct errors

 

• Reductions in Medical Liability Insurance

 

The System includes the empowerment of less skilled workers (Medical Assistants) to be able to help in more Healthcare and Whole Healthcare to reduce costs and expand Healthcare to more people and more places. This comes with risks, but there are many opportunities (including those listed above), which the System is designed to mitigate, as well as reduce errors below current rates.

 

Some of the safeguards for the empowerment of Medical Assistants include:

 

• On-line and traditional Brick and Mortar Training (Formal and/or OJT)  for System

 

• Certificate (online and practical signoff) training for each individual test/device/measurement/treatment and automatic exclusion of any testing  the individual does not have current certification for

 

• Technology Assisted Examinations and Tests (what to check, test, collect)

 

• Auto Data Collection

 

• Treatment Verification

 

• Native Language Instructions with simple to perform steps with additional help and validity checks

 

• Telemedicine/Remote Presence as needed

 

• Medical Professional Review

 

The section above mainly focused on reducing errors in a patient/provider scenario, but the same features have many other benefits in in providing Whole Healthcare. Language, culture, and disabilities can be obstacles for consumers and providers of almost any service.

 

Part of Whole Healthcare includes Personal Services. It is important that all parties involved can have a clear understanding of needs and any special instructions. These are also provided in native language, provide translation services, and can include basic checks and feedback on individual’s condition by someone providing a home service to catch any issues. Likewise any information Services also need to include native language support.