Quality costs and electronic adverse incident recording and reporting system: Is there a missing link?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the usability and potential of incorporating quality costs into an electronic adverse incident recording system within a healthcare sector. Design/methodology/approach - The paper is a general review and a discussion of an electronic adverse incident-recording system into the potential benefits and restrictions was undertaken. Articles containing both information systems and quality costs were reviewed in order to explore the potential of linking information against patient safety issues. Findings - The paper finds that quality costs is a valid and useful approach for measuring the impact of individual adverse incidents or trends in order to support managers and clinicians to develop appropriate action plans to reduce levels of patient harm and thereby improve patient safety. The paper also shows that quality costs can be used to support managers and clinicians and are commercially designed to improve the detection, investigation and action planning to improve service quality and patient safety. Practical implications - Quality costs can be used as a driver for identifying potential high impact quality and patient safety projects within a healthcare setting. Originality/value - This paper provides useful information for designers of electronic adverse incident-reporting systems to support managers and clinicians to utilise the benefits of quality costing in order to strengthen and re-focus patient safety issues in healthcare.