Patient Safety: An Engineering Approach

(CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- Patient safety has been tackled in journal articles and conference proceedings, but there are very few books on the topic. And none consider how methods and techniques developed in the area of engineering can handle safety and human error-related problems, until now.

Written by B.S. Dhillon, an expert in engineering management, design, reliability, safety, and quality, Patient Safety: An Engineering Approach (CRC Press, 2011), brings together the pertinent information scattered throughout books and journals, eliminating the need to consult many different and diverse sources to find what you need. Dhillon draws on his real-world experience to demonstrate how to handle patient safety-related problems using engineering techniques and backs this up with references for further reading at the end of each chapter. He sets the stage with introductory chapters on mathematical, patient safety, and human factors concepts essential to understanding materials presented in subsequent chapters.

Dhillon’s clear, concise discussion of the topics presents the information in such a way that no previous knowledge is required to understand the contents, yet he does not present it at a merely rudimentary level. He brings a fresh approach and engineering perspective to the issues, giving you a new tool kit for performing patient safety-related analysis, designing better medical systems/devices, and handling patient safety-related problems from an engineering perspective.

The book includes the following topics:
Patient safety: facts and figures, terms, definitions, problems, references, basics, goals, culture, contributing factors, assessment objectives and barriers
Mathematics: range, mode, median, mean deviation, sets and Boolean algebra laws, probability definitions, properties, distributions, density function, cumulative distribution function, Laplace transforms, definition, final-value theorem, solving first-order differential equations
Safety and human factors: basics, behaviors, objectives, contributing disciplines, common causes of work and mechanical injuries; accident causation theories, safety management principles, problems, classifications of product hazards
Methods for performing patient safety analysis: failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA), root cause analysis, fault tree analysis, Pareto diagram, Markov method, Six Sigma, technique of operations review, hazard preliminary analysis and operations, job safety and interface safety analysis
Improved safety/health care: safer practices, patient safety program/indicators, areas of improved patient safety from the Enhanced Health Information Exchange, causes of patient injuries and examples of factors
Medication safety and errors: in emergency and operating rooms; drug labeling/packaging problems; prescribing errors; medication-use safety indicators; medication error facts and figures, types, common reasons, nursing-related factors, guidelines to reduce occurrence
Hazards to health-care workers and fall prevention strategies: workload and safety relationship, technologies commonly used, latex allergy, musculoskeletal and needle-stick injuries, recommendations for acute and long-term care, patient bed and wheelchair falls
Human error: anesthesia, emergency/surgery/intensive care units, technology use, laboratory testing, radiotherapy, image interpretation, contributing factors, error reporting systems and reasons not reported, prevention guidelines
Medical device safety, errors, and usability: requirements and standards, legal aspects, reducing human error during device development, device use and user interface, designing and developing devices for elderly and disorders, useful documents for improving usability of devices
Patient safety organizations: types, functions, governmental, independent
Patient safety data sources, mathematical models and problems, and literature
About D.S. Dhillon
D.S. Dhillon is an international authority on the fundamentals, methods, and management of engineering, reliability, quality, and safety; human factors and errors; and design concepts and creativity, and has authored more than 38 books on these topics.

About The Author

CRC Press

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