Inha University Hospital improves “quality of care” as its top priority for “patient safety”

“Integrated Knowledge Repository” with the latest information

For patient safety, the medical decisionmaking process has to take into account that characteristics of the individual patient plays an important role, and medical staff who are unable to understand the vast amount of the latest literature in a limited time have a risk of making medical decisions based on incomplete information.

There is a strong demand for an integrated knowledge repository that can be used while planning for diagnosis and treatment to minimize this risk, and it was the CDSS, such as UpToDate, Medi-Span®, and Lexicomp® that met these requirements.

In particular, UpToDate’s editorial team constantly evaluates the latest journals and updates its content, providing users with the latest, most accurate recommendations. It is the most widely used among the first-time practitioners who have experience in the field of treatment. In addition, interpretation and on-site application of information are standardized, so that specialists can also minimize treatment and examinations that threaten patient safety and incur costs, contributing to reduction of variability of care.

Enhanced convenience with “reference terms” leading to increase work productivity

While UpToDate is used in the hospital, it is also used as a knowledge dictionary with a comprehensive collection of medical information. Wolters Kluwer also operates a reference terminology called “health language”, which is a powerful extension in the real field if it is supported in the future. I’m looking forward to it.

The more you use it together, the more sophisticated it becomes. When it is first introduced, it can be customized according to the characteristics of each hospital, and after that, it can be customized for each medical staff using the CDSS.

Expanding CDSS by introducing additional solutions for non-face-to-face medical services

As the demand and interest in non-face-to-face medical services for the vulnerable groups have increased due to the Covid-19, Inha University Hospital is the only hospital in Korea to get a temporary permission from the government for non-face-to-face care services for foreign residents. As we receive it, we are preparing our platform for non-face-to-face medical care.

To this end, a global drug information solution, Lexicomp, and a clinical screening solution Medi-Span will be implemented in the new electronic medical records (EMR) system, which will be introduced in the near future.

Based on global drug information, Lexicomp covers a wider range of information than domestic pharmacy dictionaries, allowing medical staff to refer to medication decisions, and Medi-Span automatically screens prescriptions against drug interactions, dosage, duplicate therapy, and patient profiles like pregnancies and lactation, drug allergies, gender and age. Because it proactively screens prescriptions, and work within the EMR it can contribute to the reduction of unexpected errors and variability of care.