How to Improve Patient Safety With Digital Tools

🧠 AI for Bridging Doctor–Patient–Family Miscommunication in Healthcare 💬 In today’s precision-driven yet fragmented healthcare system, communication failures remain one of the most overlooked threats to patient safety—fueling nearly 30% of malpractice claims and over $1.7B in avoidable harm. These aren’t isolated breakdowns—they’re systemic gaps that span legal, clinical, emotional, ethical, and structural domains. 🧑⚖️ Imagine a terminal cancer patient’s end-of-life wishes ignored because a DNR wasn't documented. 👶 Or immigrant parents blindsided by a child’s surgical complication due to lack of interpretation. 👨👩👦 Or shared guardianship overlooked during a pediatric emergency. These are real-world failures of communication infrastructure—not intention. 🤖 But here’s where AI changes the game. 📜 Consent Intelligence Agents use NLP to ensure informed consent is understood and documented. 📱 Health chatbots like Penny and Northwell's virtual assistants extend post-visit engagement. 🧾 After-Visit Summaries, ambient transcription, and teach-back automation improve patient comprehension and safety. 🧘♀️ Generative AI models help clinicians craft emotionally attuned responses to patients and simulate difficult conversations with cultural and ethical nuance. 👨👧👦 Consent Verification AI ensures legal surrogates are properly engaged in care decisions. 🌐 Multilingual AI tools like Canopy bridge language barriers and help patients feel seen, heard, and understood. 📊 Most powerfully, AI is no longer just a tool—it’s becoming the infrastructure of relational safety in healthcare. Structured, searchable, equitable conversations are now possible—across time, care teams, and systems. 🚨 But with great power comes new responsibilities: ✅ Rigorous validation ✅ Cultural sensitivity ✅ Transparent disclosure of AI’s role ✅ AI that amplifies—not replaces—the human voice in medicine #AIinHealthcare #HealthEquity #InformedConsent #DigitalHealth #GenerativeAI #HealthLiteracy #PatientCenteredCare #ClinicalCommunication #HealthTech #AIethics #PediatricCare #MedTech #AIagents #AmbientAI

How #AI can transform safety in pediatric healthcare? In healthcare, failure is not an option. But what if we could fail safely—and use that failure to save lives? Before opening a new maternal care unit at a leading children’s hospital, we faced a critical challenge: -Could we ensure the hospital was truly READY to care for both mothers and their newborns who both could become acutely and critically ill? To answer this, I created scenarios to test new hospital systems and processes and I helped lead teams through iterative high-fidelity in situ simulations that exposed hidden risks (https://lnkd.in/gCU4TTA3): ❌ Equipment that was missing or inaccessible. ❌ Communication breakdowns that could delay critical care. ❌ Massive transfusion protocols were inefficient. ❌Blood/samples that were misidentified -The result? These simulations uncovered 152 unique safety hazards—many of which would have gone unnoticed until an actual emergency. We didn’t just find problems (latent safety threats); we solved them and retested our solutions before a single patient walked through the door. But what if we could take this even further with AI? -AI-powered simulations could: 🟢 Model real patient scenarios and automate scenario analysis—using real patient data to model risks in advance. 🟢Use digital twins to predict how a hospital system will react under pressure. 🟢Continuously optimize safety protocols based on AI-driven insights from real-time hospital data. 🟢Use augmented reality and virtual reality in simulations testing environments and teams. 🟢Use computer vision to improve patient safety much the same way the modern car everts disasters on the road (lane assist, emergent braking..) The next era of patient safety is simulation-driven, AI-powered, and proactive. It is already here today in some healthcare systems, but all children cared for in any hospital should be afforded the same safety systems. We have a long way to go. The healthcare system of the future won’t just respond to crises—it will anticipate and prevent them. Are our hospitals prepared for this shift? I am happy to discuss how can we use AI to make hospitals safer. #UsingWhatWeHaveBetter #AIinHealthcare #PatientSafety #Simulation #HealthcareInnovation #Pediatrics

Designing for Escalation: Where Most Health Tech Breaks It’s easy to design the happy path. It’s hard to design for when things get worse. Clincians learn to constantly ask: “What’s the backup plan?” What happens if this doesn’t work? What if the patient doesn’t improve? What if something changes? Being in product, I now see how rare it is to design for escalation with that same mindset. Most digital health products are built around efficiency, speed, and user flow. But in healthcare, escalation isn’t the exception. It’s the core use case. Where things break: - A patient’s symptoms worsen, but there’s no structured path to reassessment - An async workflow flags an urgent concern, but no clinician is on the other end - A digital intake detects a red flag, but there’s no routing logic for higher-acuity care - A health coach or MA sees something off, but there’s no clear escalation protocol or legal coverage These moments aren’t edge cases. They’re where trust, safety, and outcomes are won or lost. What designing for escalation actually requires: - Care protocols with branching logic, not just linear pathways - Defined escalation tiers: who gets notified, when, and how - Signal routing: clinical, behavioral, or biometric inputs that trigger the right next step - Flexible infrastructure: can your system escalate from digital to human, async to real-time, automated to clinical? - Legal + scope clarity: does everyone in your care model know what they’re allowed to do when escalation is needed? The strategic insight: You’re not just designing a service. You’re designing a safety net. And in healthcare, your product isn’t judged by how well it handles the easy stuff. It’s judged by what happens when the plan fails. Because it will. Someone will drop off. Someone will worsen. Someone will need more than your base layer can offer. When that moment comes, does your product know what to do? Final thought: The best virtual care models don’t just optimize for access or scale. They plan for deterioration, risk, and escalation. They don’t wait for something to break before they decide who’s responsible. That’s where real system design lives. And that’s how we build trust that lasts. What’s one place your system is (or isn’t) designed for escalation? I’d love to trade lessons. #HealthcareProductStrategy #EscalationDesign #VirtualCare #ClinicalUX #HealthTech #SystemDesign #PhysicianProductExec #OutcomesDrivenDesign

A ‘Falls Prevention’ app helps reduce care home ambulance call-outs: 📲The Safe Steps app is a digital tool that helps carers assess and mitigate fall risks by identifying high-risk adults and guiding care teams to create personalized action plans 📲37 care homes and 25 GP practices in the UK have adopted the Safe Steps app 📲A one-year pilot resulted in a 57% reduction in ambulance call-outs, a 38% reduction in falls and 12% reduction in patients taken to hospital 📲Other areas of the region which did not take part in the pilot, saw a 10% increase in falls in Q1 2024 📲The tool allows care teams to measure 12 key risk factors and recognise when a resident might be at risk of deteriorating and take actions to protect their wellbeing 📲In May I shared a study published by digital health company Cera claiming that the NHS could save £1bn a year by adopting AI tools designed to predict falls and keep older patients out of hospital 👇Links to articles in comments below #digitalhealth

A recent study conducted at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center demonstrates the impact of remote care management on patient safety and satisfaction. With telehealth, patients experience enhanced accessibility to care, leading to improved outcomes and higher satisfaction rates. This approach not only provides convenience but also ensures consistent monitoring, significantly reducing hospital readmissions and emergency visits. The integration of remote care technologies has proven to be a game-changer, fostering a more proactive and preventive healthcare environment. These findings underscore the importance of leveraging digital health tools to optimize patient care and outcomes. Key Insights: Enhanced Accessibility 📱 - Telehealth improves access to care, ensuring timely medical attention. Improved Patient Safety 🛡️ - Continuous monitoring reduces emergency visits and hospital readmissions. Higher Satisfaction Rates 😊 - Patients report greater satisfaction with the convenience and quality of remote care. Proactive Healthcare 🚀 - Remote management allows for preventive measures, addressing health issues before they escalate. Operational Efficiency 🔄 - Streamlines healthcare processes, making care delivery more efficient and effective. https://lnkd.in/e36qX3gF