High reliability and the impact of 'rescuing' patients
Patient Safety Monitor, December 21, 2016
This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor.
The healthcare industry is transitioning to a new wave of patient safety, according to a group of experts that says high reliability will become a bigger emphasis for healthcare facilities looking to improve quality care.
Amir Ghaferi, MD, MS, assistant professor of surgery and business at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and the chief of general surgery at the Ann Arbor Veterans Administration Healthcare System, spoke with Patient Safety Monitor Journal about this transition, which he and several colleagues outlined in an article published in Harvard Business Review (https://hbr.org/2016/08/the-next-wave-of-hospital-innovation-to-make-patients-safer). During the conversation, Ghaferi explained what it means for organizations to be highly reliable and how hospitals are implementing new approaches to facilitate better patient care.
Editor’s note: The following was lightly edited for space and clarity.
Q: In the Harvard Business Review article, you make reference to the Institute of Medicine’s To Err is Human report in 1999 that said as many as 98,000 people die each year from medical errors. A recent report pegged that number at more than 250,000. Has healthcare gotten worse or are we just more aware of these errors?
A: I think the 250,000 number is very controversial. Healthcare is definitely safer and for anyone to say it is less safe than it was in 1999 is incorrect. I don’t think that’s an accurate characterization of healthcare.
Healthcare is definitely more complex now. The systems in which we deliver care are more complex. The patients we are caring for are more complex, and the treatments we have are much more complex. That number [of patient deaths] has not increased by two- to three-fold since that time.
This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor.
Related Products
-
Patient Safety Monitor
Patient Safety Monitor is a searchable, web-based crosswalk that organizes state, CMS, and Joint Commission requirements by...
-
Patient Safety Monitor Insider
This e-mail newsletter provides healthcare professionals with the latest patient safety news, while offering useful...
-
Patient Safety Monitor - 1 Year Electronic
Patient Safety Monitor is a searchable, web-based crosswalk that organizes state, CMS, and Joint Commission requirements by...
-
Patient Safety Monitor - 1 Year Print and Electronic
Patient Safety Monitor is a searchable, web-based crosswalk that organizes state, CMS, and Joint Commission requirements by...
-
Patient Safety Monitor - 2 Year Electronic
Patient Safety Monitor is a searchable, web-based crosswalk that organizes state, CMS, and Joint Commission requirements by...
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Math can be tricky: TJC corrects ABHR storage requirement
- Air control equals infection control
- Don't forget the three checks in medication administration
- Residency coordinators’ responsibilities
- Study: Shorter shifts reduces residents’ attentional failures
- Note similarities and differences between HCPCS, CPT® codes
- RPA Subscriber Exclusive: February issue of Residency Program Alert now available
- The consequences of an incomplete medical record
- OSHA HazCom updates include labeling, SDS requirements
- Practice the six rights of medication administration
- E-mailed
-
- Air control equals infection control
- OSHA HazCom updates include labeling, SDS requirements
- Tip: Note new thyroid imaging codes
- Tim Porter-O'Grady sounds off
- Skills of effective case managers
- Q: Can you clarify the reporting of dates on the plan of care for diagnosis onset and exacerbation?
- Q&A: Defining Subacute
- Q&A: Are colleges sending students to our facility for rotations business associates?
- Note similarities and differences between HCPCS, CPT® codes
- Fracture coding in ICD-10-CM requires greater specificity
- Searched