Clinical Equipment Standardisation and Its Impact on Patient Safety.

摘要

The research conducted for this thesis has evaluated and proven how specific measurement tools can gauge clinical equipment standardisation, allowing for comparative benchmarking; and that by improving these benchmarks; a reduction in clinical errors will result. Evidence has already been provided by Charles Vincent[1] and many others that conclusively illustrate the link between improved health system results and a reduction in clinician errors.;Under certain conditions this link was found to be valid but can be impacted by other factors. There was not sufficient data found from this observational study to show that patient adverse events that involved the selected equipment decreased by improved standardisation of these devices.;This study has researched the level of equipment standardisation, the number of clinical user errors and adverse patient events for two common medical devices: syringe pumps and physiological monitors at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.