Design of a User-Centered Voluntary Reporting System for Patient Safety Events

As the third leading cause of death in the U.S., patient safety events (PSE) are difficult to control due to multiple inputs from healthcare providers, systems, or even patients. Inspired by the success of reporting systems in other fields, PSE reporting systems could be a good resource to share and to learn from previous cases. However, the success of such systems in healthcare is yet to be seen due to the low report quality and the lack of interoperability and communication. A knowledge-based and user-centered PSE reporting system is needed to organize the scattered knowledge and improve user-friendliness. We described the development of a knowledge base for patient falls, the most frequent PSE. Based on the knowledge base, user-centered design features were incorporated into the system to improve the reporting accuracy, completeness, and timeliness. This prototype holds promise in improving PSE reporting quality and facilitating human-computer communication.