The patient safety institute demonstration project: a model for implementing a local health information infrastructure

Abstract

The increasing focus on patient safety has uncovered many unsafe conditions in the current US. healthcare system. One of the most glaring problems is the inability of a fragmented healthcare system to provide critical and timely clinical information at the point of care. The Institute of Medicine has called for the development of a National Health Information Infrastructure to rectify this deficiency. This NHII will be built on Local Health Information Infrastructures, or LHIIs. The Patient Safety Institute is a potential model for an LHII that was developed and implemented in Seattle using the Swedish Medical Centers and associated ambulatory clinics. This model was piloted and evaluated among 365 clinical users across three hospitals, three clinics, and family practice residency programs involving access of records of more than 5300 distinct patients within a five-month period and involved the collection of more than 23 million clinical data results. User responses revealed the technology was intuitive to learn, easy to use, easy to navigate, and helpful in clinical care. The PSI demonstration project has developed an approach to the creation and implementation of LHIIs that is potentially transferable to other local communities.