Abstract
In the Japanese medical field, it is widely considered that information technology is insufficiently utilized. Risk control is an essential issue for all hospitals, and We have learned that nurses directly face the risks of medical accidents. Especially, medication and infection control should be considered more deeply in order to decrease medical accidents. Recent progress in information technology has contributed to better medical risk management. In this report, two risk control systems to reduce medical accidents are introduced. 1) A portable data administrator (PDA) equipped with a barcode reader to read patient wrist bands is able to access by intranet patient data and a drug ordering server through a wireless Local Area Network. In order to eliminate mistakes, the nurse can confirm the drugs to be administered by bar code. 2) An infection control system consisting of patient reporting, histological data management, statistical analysis, and bacterial and drug information assists in selecting optimum treatments which lead to customer satisfaction. The system suggests optimum antibiotics to doctors based on the epidemiological analysis of past patient data. Real time monitoring for nosocomical infection allows rapid warnings to prevent out-breaks. If human operators use the system as a tool, and double-check its warnirgs, we may be able to decrease the rate of medical accidents.
