Delivering safe and effective test-result: communication, management and follow-up

The World Health Organization has identified poor test-result management as a high priority area of patient safety. Systematic reviews in test-result follow-up have shown that failure to follow up on test results, such as pathology or medical imaging, can have major consequences for the effectiveness, quality and safety of patient care. Over the last three decades there has been considerable growth in the number of requests for medical test services, which has added to the complexity of how patient care is delivered, and test results are managed. The objective of this project is to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and robustness of test-result management in the Quebec healthcare system. We intend to achieve this through the analysis of the current processes, methodical identification and risk-weighted ranking of all the possible failure modes and errors, and finding innovative systematic methods to eliminate them while reducing the time and effort of healthcare professionals in test result follow-up.

Faculty Supervisor:

Nadia Bhuiyan;Masoumeh Kazemi Zanjani

Student:

Partner:

Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Public administration

University:

Concordia University

Program: