The Future of Patient Safety: How Technology, Data, and Culture Are Transforming Care
By Inovalon
A conversation with Karen Biesack, RHIA, CPHQ, CPPS, Senior Application Support Analyst, Safety & Quality at Inovalon
How is technology shaping the future of patient safety, and what innovations excite you the most?
Clinical surveillance is transforming patient safety by moving healthcare from a reactive model to a proactive, real-time risk mitigation approach. Rather than waiting for adverse events to occur, these systems continuously analyze vast amounts of clinical data to identify early warning signs of deterioration, infections, medication errors, and other safety risks. This enables clinicians to intervene sooner, improving patient outcomes and reducing preventable harm.
Technology is shifting the paradigm and leading organizations to incorporate patient safety tools to create a culture where safety is embedded, not just expected. One of the most powerful aspects of clinical surveillance is its ability to use predictive analytics to detect high-risk scenarios before they become critical. For example, these tools can recognize patterns indicating sepsis, adverse drug reactions, or healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) early allowing providers to intervene before patients require intensive care, reducing ICU transfers, hospital length of stay, and mortality rates.
The most exciting part of this transformation is that patient safety is no longer just about detecting harm—it’s about preventing it before it occurs. The ability to harness clinical surveillance and predictive analytics to save lives, reduce complications, and improve care quality at scale is what excites me the most about the future of patient safety.
In what ways can electronic health records (EHRs) and clinical surveillance tools work synergistically to be leveraged to reduce medical errors and adverse events?
Technology alone is not enough—it’s true impact depends on seamless integration with EHRs, clinician engagement, and a culture of proactive safety leadership. For many healthcare professionals, we must ensure that these innovations enhance clinical workflows, reduce alert fatigue, and provide value to frontline teams, rather than adding complexity to their work.
The integration of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and clinical surveillance tools is transforming patient safety by shifting to a proactive and preventive model. While EHRs serve as a central repository for patient data, they are not inherently designed to analyze real-time patterns. This is where clinical surveillance bridges the gap—by detecting early warning signs, and generating actionable insights, allowing clinicians to intervene before adverse events occur.
One of the most powerful aspects of clinical surveillance is its ability to continuously analyze data from EHRs, reviewing such factors as vital signs and lab results. Unlike EHRs, which focus on documentation, clinical surveillance tools proactively identify subtle warning signs of patient deterioration, medication errors, or infection risks before they escalate. An example would be Inovalon’s VigiLanz Quality Management, which can identify sepsis early and alert clinicians regarding a patient’s change in status. This intervention helps clinicians intervene before the patient deteriorates.
This shift toward near real-time patient safety strategies is one of the most exciting advancements in modern healthcare, as it has the potential to prevent harm before it happens, improve clinical workflows, and ultimately save lives.
Looking ahead, how can organizations ensure that leaders are equipped to drive a proactive, data-driven, and system-wide approach to reducing harm and improving patient safety?
Patient safety is not just about individual interventions—it’s about redesigning systems to prevent harm at every level. A strong culture of safety is foundational to reducing harm, and healthcare leaders must lead this change by engaging stakeholders at all levels to implement patient safety initiatives, encouraging a Just Culture where errors are openly reported, and learning is prioritized.
Patient safety is a team effort, requiring seamless collaboration across disciplines, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, infection preventionists, and IT specialists. Effective communication and teamwork are at the core of preventing medical errors and improving safety outcomes.
As healthcare becomes more complex, leaders in safety and quality must be adaptable, technology-savvy, and proactive in driving system-wide improvements.
If you could implement one transformational change in patient safety today, what would it be and why?
One transformational change in patient safety that I would like to implement would be a leadership commitment to patient safety. I genuinely believe that if leadership prioritizes patient safety as a top priority, sets clear expectations of all employees and models proper safe behaviors, it is possible to change a hospital’s culture. If leadership is invested in a safe culture by encouraging reporting of incidents and near misses and focuses on learning and improvement, hospital employees will follow suit. Leadership commitment moves the patient safety culture from a blame-based culture to a culture of empowerment, allowing healthcare staff to have the authority to speak up about safety concerns, participate in process improvement and actively participate and contribute to hospital-based safety initiatives.