Inclined docs like Dr. Lee, who know that their hospitals collect reams of data that can be useful for patient safety projects, many times have no idea how to extract said data. He has learned that partnering with “gatekeepers” is a way to help others help him.
“We are collecting data every second, every minute,” Dr. Lee says. “It’s amazing how much data we have, but to actually sift through it and make it meaningful is very difficult. You have to know what questions to ask and you have to get buy-in from the [gatekeepers], because they get thousands of requests for data extraction.”
Richard Quinn is a freelance writer in New Jersey.