ANOTHER MEDICAL CONFERENCE
By
Ilene Corina, Patient Safety Advocate
December
2017
Another
medical conference on the topic of patient safety has just passed. There have
been numerous conferences over the years, and I have attended many of them. I usually leave inspired, excited and often
overwhelmed by the upbeat and positive work being done in patient safety.
The
usual program for such conferences has patient safety leaders talking about the
wonderful work they are doing. One or
more patients, who may or may not be medical professionals, talk about the
tragedy that brought them there that day. There will be presentations about the
heartbreaking journeys of the family members of patients who died, patients who
weren’t treated well, and many presentations offering insights for the
healthcare professionals on how improvements can be made. Then there may be
awards for the great work being done to save lives.
While
all this is happening, in a state far, far away, there is another side to this.
A hospitalized patient is getting an incorrect diagnosis or the wrong medication,
or is fighting a hospital-acquired infection. Have the healthcare professionals
attending the conference remembered to tell their patient and those patients’
loved ones what they too should know about keeping safe?
I
have said for years that patient safety should be seen as like wearing a seat
belt. It is up to the driver (the medical team) to do the right thing, but if
something goes wrong we (the patients) still should be wearing a seatbelt. Not
because we are predicting something will
go wrong, but because it might. Patients
who know nothing about patient safety have no “seatbelt” are completely
unprepared for the risks and unwanted outcomes.
These
conferences need to be attended by representatives of business and industry —
both management and rank-and-file employees — that is, the people who actually use
the healthcare system.
UPS
has 434,000 employees
General
Electric has more than 300,000 employees
Bank
of America has 208,000 employees
Disney
World has 62,000 employees
In
2006 a survey found that 14.5% of employees took
Family Medical Leave in 2004. Of those, 35 percent took it more than once
during the year. How many of these days off could have been avoided if there
were fewer complications in healthcare?
Since
between 200,000 and 400,000 people die each year from preventable medical
errors, at a cost of as much as $19.5 billion[1], shouldn’t the corporate
leaders of UPS, GE, Bank of America, Disney World and other major employers be
sending their staff to patient safety conferences?
At
what point does someone in healthcare say: “We’ve had enough training but it’s
still not perfect. So now we must
include patients, their families and their employers in this conversation.
Contact: Ilene Corina (516) 579-4711 or
icorina@pulsecenterforpatientsafety.org
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