I found an article from a bit over a year ago that discusses some of the harms that we see in healthcare. It reminds us that the problems are through out all of the areas that you might seek care. Inpatient, the outpatient office, pharmacies, etc. The article then offers a few strategies to help…
Category: Safety Posts for Clinicians
Safety posts with a focus on clinicians.
When Problem Solving Inhibits Safety and Improvement
In general, making improvements in a health care system can be difficult because of time constraints, cost concerns, competing priorities, and even skepticism about whether improvement projects make a difference. Yet, a surprising barrier can be the competency, ingenuity, and individual efforts of those that work within the existing system. How can this possibly be…
When Everything Goes Right
I am sure many heard a report in the last few days about a Japanese Airline that clipped another smaller plane while landing, burst into flame and yet hundreds of passengers were able to evacuate before the plane was fully consumed by the fire. Miraculous….. or was it? The airline industry spends a good bit…
Private Equity in Health Care – Yikes
Several friends sent me a link to an article that I had already seen. It’s upsetting but not surprising. the title of the article is “Serious Medical Errors Rose After Private Equity Firms Bought Hospitals”. You can find the article here. The title of the article pretty much tells you all that you need to…
Maintaining Competancy in Healthcare
The time to train to become a physician is considerable. Medical school, residency, sometime adding a fellowship. It’s a lot. The challenge then, is how to we maintain that level of competency as we spend years and years in practice. Many clinicians spend considerable time taking care of their patients and over time it can…
Improving Patient Safety and Team Communication Through Daily Huddles
I have talked previously about team communication and some structured ways for teams to communicate better. I want to discuss an article titled “Improving Patient Safety and Team Communication Through Daily Huddles,” available at this link. This article does a nice job describing the importance of something like a daily huddle as an effective strategy…
Difficult Times for Those in Health Care
The issue of burnout has been of concern within a variety of professions, including health care. There have been changes made in the training of young physicians to restrict the number of hours they can work at a time. More time off has also been added. Efforts to manage work-life balance have been more considered…
My Father Just Went to Rehab
On July 20 of this year, my father suffered a cardiac arrest after developing a hospital acquired urinary tract infection. He did not respond to antibiotics and his worsening symptoms were unrecognized until he pretty much died. He survived, but spent a month in the intensive unit, 10 days of which were on a ventilator….
The Stories of Harm in Healthcare are Many
If you are interested in patient safety, there remains so very much work to be done. I hope you don’t have a family member that has been harmed by the healthcare system. Rather, I hope many of you are interested in safety and quality because you can see the opportunities available to improve patient care…
How Do We Keep Our Families Safe in the Hospital?
My father entered a hospital with a knee fracture, got a hospital acquired urinary track infection, that continued to worsen with little recognition, and ultimately suffered a cardiac arrest. Somehow, despite being 83 years old, he survived this substandard care. But here’s something you might find equally unsettling, every medical person that I have spoken…
Despite Everything I Know, I Could Not Save My Father
Early in my career I was struck by how much I didn’t really understand about how hard it was for patients to access medical care. Long story short, this lead me to a career that has focused on quality and patient safety. I have worked at the national level in the VA and I have…