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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Digit. Health
Sec. Health Informatics
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2024.1260521

Characterizing patient details-related challenges from health information technology-related incident reports from Swedish healthcare

Md Shafiqur Rahman Jabin Md Shafiqur Rahman Jabin 1,2*Ding Pan Ding Pan 3Evalill Nilsson Evalill Nilsson 3
  • 1 University of Bradford, Bradford, United Kingdom
  • 2 Department of Medicine and Optometry, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden
  • 3 Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Despite many benefits offered by Health Information Technology (HIT) systems, new technology brings new and unforeseen risks to healthcare quality and patient safety if they're not properly planned, designed, implemented, and managed. This study examined health information technology-related (HIT) incidents to identify patient details-related issues, their association with contributing factors, and outcomes.Methods: Sources of information comprised retrospectively collected incident reports (n=95) using two sampling methods, i.e., purposive and snowball sampling. The incident reports were analyzed using both the inductive method (thematic analysis) and the deductive approach using an existing framework, i.e., the International Classification for Patient Safety.The studies identified 90 incidents with 120 patient details-related issues-categorized as either information-related (48%) or documentation-related (52%) problems; around two-thirds of the 120 issues were characterized by human factors. Of the total sample, 87 contributing factors were identified, of which "medical device/system" (45%) and "documentation" (20%) were the most common contributing factors. Of 90 incidents, more than half (59%) comprised patient-related outcomes-patient inconvenience (47%) and patient harm (12%) and the remaining 41% (n=37) included staff or organization-related outcomes.Discussion: More than half of the incidents resulted in patient-related outcomes, namely patient inconvenience and patient harm, including disease risks, severe health deterioration, injury, and even patient death. Incidents associated with patient details can cause deleterious effects; therefore, characterizing them should be a routine part of clinical practice to improve the constantly changing healthcare system.

    Keywords: human factor, technical factor, Information problem, documentation problem, Patient Safety, Healthcare quality, Quality Improvement

    Received: 27 Aug 2023; Accepted: 16 Jan 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Rahman Jabin, Pan and Nilsson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Md Shafiqur Rahman Jabin, University of Bradford, Bradford, BD7 1DP, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.