Rethinking safety intelligence for improvement
Who are we?
We are researchers from a variety of backgrounds such as medical doctors and psychologists, mostly based at Bradford Royal Infirmary and the University of Leeds.
We work in one of six UK centres (‘Patient Safety Research Collaborations’) aiming to improve patient safety in the NHS and social care.
What is patient safety & patient safety intelligence?
Patient safety
Patient safety is about making sure that when people get medical care they are safe from harm due to accidents and errors that may happen while being treated.
This includes things like –
- making sure medications are given correctly,
- surgeries are conducted in line with best practices,
- and infections are minimised.
Patient safety research aims to find ways of creating systems, practices, and guidelines to make sure that using health services is as safe as possible.
Patient safety intelligence
Patient safety intelligence refers to the use of data, information technology, and analysis to learn about and improve safety in health and care settings.
It involves collecting and analysing information from various sources to identify risks, trends, and opportunities for improvement and to learn from best practice.
Research into developing intelligent tools and methods can support health and care organisations to make better decisions that impact patient safety.
What are our research themes?
We have three themes or areas of research:
- Learning from soft intelligence
- Generating novel insights from integrated data
- Using data to drive improvement
Our overall goal is to create and test new safety intelligence solutions that improve patient safety improvement across health and care systems.
This will include answering questions about how best to capture safety information, how to make sense of it, and how to act on it to make improvements. Our safety intelligence solutions will address:
- Inequalities in patient safety
- Learning from the experience of staff and patients
- Identifying and sharing best practices
- Risks of harm before it occurs.