Hospital Incident Management Systems are widely adopted across healthcare organizations to capture, track, and manage events that could potentially harm patients, employees, or the institution. Although these systems play a crucial role in identifying and mitigating risk, they often function in isolation from Quality Management Systems. As a result, there's a missed opportunity to integrate quality goals and measures such as the CMS Star Rating, Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program (HACRP), and Value-Based Purchasing (VBP).
The reason for this disconnect may lie in the fragmentation of vendors. Often, Incident Management Systems and Quality Systems are sold by different companies that don't integrate their platforms. Even when the same company offers both systems, they're usually implemented as standalone solutions, each with its own pricing structure. This separation is not only cost-inefficient but also prevents meaningful data synthesis that could advance organizational quality objectives.
Incident Management Systems usually track events like patient falls, hospital-acquired infections, and surgical complications. However, these are treated as isolated incidents rather than part of a broader quality program. Consequently, the scope for learning and improvement is limited.
Patient Falls: Although tracked, there's often no linkage between the incidence of falls and the final measure such as PSI 90 that impacts CMS Star Rating and Leapfrog scores
Hospital-Acquired Infections: Incident Management Systems might record the event but will not typically contextualize it in terms of its influence on HACRP or VBP metrics.
Surgical Complications: These events are recorded, but the data rarely feed into programs that could influence quality measures and, possibly, reimbursement rates.
Platforms like Dexur's Unified Quality, Safety, Risk, Compliance, and Education Platform offer an integrated solution at a single price point. Dexur's Safety, Incident, and Event Management platform, for example, aligns incident management features with the quality goals of specific programs. This holistic approach helps to instill a quality mindset across all employees, not just those directly involved in quality management.
The failure to integrate Incident Management with Quality translates into lost opportunities for healthcare organizations to improve quality measures and achieve financial incentives. By operating in siloes, these systems also miss the chance to facilitate broader organizational learning and improvement. Solutions that offer integrated capabilities can bridge this gap and contribute to more coordinated, efficient, and quality-focused healthcare delivery.