PATI ENT SAFE T Y
this spirit of shared responsibility to the companies that develop the medicines and implants used by the NHS. Some registries are set up to alert manufacturers when the number of devices that develop issues or fail causes concern. This can encourage strong partnerships between suppliers and the health service for the benefit of patients. Product developers that are able to see accurate information on the longevity of joint replacements or the battery life of pain management devices over time can play their part in enhancing these products and making them safer and better. This, in turn, will improve the experience of patients who are implanted with these devices. This collaborative approach has been one of the reasons why the National Joint Registry has received so much praise. Where the NHS undertakes studies to monitor post-operative quality of life of patients following treatment, this could provide valuable feedback to developers of medical devices. It could help them to bring better products to market and ensure that existing ones remain safe and effective.
The patient connection With medicine increasingly involving patients in decisions around their care, it seems logical that this openness is extended to a registry too. A patient who is given detailed information in advance of a knee or hip replacement operation, such as national recovery times, common side effects and the risks based on the experience of others, could be more likely to ask the relevant questions and follow the post-operative advice of their medical team. With a deeper understanding of the issues to look out for, patients may feel more confident to flag problems early in the recovery process too, which would allow action to be taken sooner to reduce the risk of infection or complications further down the line. A clinician could pull all of this information from a well-designed registry and share it with a patient in minutes. One registry set up in February 2018,
THE ELISA FAMILY The future of intensive care ventilation
took this direct approach to information sharing with the aim of helping members of the public to make more informed decisions about non-surgical cosmetic procedures which were becoming much more widely available at the time.
The Joint Council of Cosmetic Practitioners (JCCP)2
register was launched to help address the urgent need to educate the public about non-surgical procedures such as Botox and dermal fillers. This is an industry that is estimated to be worth in excess of £3 billion within the next five years3
and patients who Loewenstein 4ChAdAug19_Hres.qxp_Loewenstein 2ChAdAug19_Hres 07/06/2019 09:59 Page 1
undergo these procedures often believe that, because they are non-surgical, the risk of things going wrong is low. However, issues such as bruising, or headaches are common and injections can affect surrounding tissues and muscles with potentially significant consequences. The JCCP provides members of the pubic with the opportunity to find out as much as possible about the procedures they are considering before going ahead. They have instant access to the latest information on the risks, side effects and known issues of specific non-surgical procedures to
help them make an informed choice. Importantly, people can check that their chosen practitioner is qualified to carry out a specific procedure too and that they operate according to the relevant code of practice.4 Schemes such as this have an increasingly important role to play in reducing the risk of harm and cutting the number of procedures coming into the health service to be repaired following failed or botched procedures.
Knowledge base In the same way, the public themselves can input data directly into registries to help improve the health of the nation as a whole. One example of this is the COVID-19 symptom reporting app launched in March 2020, which has attracted Government funding and accumulated more than four million registered users5
to date. Users are
asked to record the state of their health anonymously on a daily basis. This is designed to provide a wealth of data that can be used to monitor the number of positive cases across the country.
Despite its detractors, the technology
Elisa 800 with Integrated EIT
Löwenstein Medical UK Ltd, 1 E-Centre, Easthampstead Road, Bracknell RG12 1NF t: 01344 830023 e:
info@loewensteinmedical.co.uk w:
loewensteinmedical.co.uk
MARCH 2021
WWW.CLINICALSERVICESJOURNAL.COM l
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