User Comments

1. 

   8/14/09

   dailymindjob

   There are systems in place to report errors. There is also a pecking order many residents, nurses, and PA's are not willing to challenge in fear of bucking the system. A lawsuit is not something they want to be faced with or named in. A nation wide "mandatory reporting system" you suggest is technically already in hospital policies across the country. If you can't bribe them, you sure as hell aren't going to convince them to fess up by making it mandatory. Certain levels of anonymity need to be provided, and are provided in the current system, but promise of anonymity alone is not enough for some. There's no guarantee of anonymity in many cases, even if we are told our comments are completely anonymous.
   
   Hospital acquired infections come from a variety of sources and handwashing is something those of us in health care do so much of, you might call us obsessive. Alcohol based solution dispensers outside of every room in one study abroad showed an 80 something percent increase in compliance from medical staff when compared to handwashing. Unfortunately, certain patient populations are susceptible to hospital acquired infections, so it's not as simple as saying it's easily preventable. Switching from a paper system to a computer system can make a huge difference. The possibilities for incentives and knowledge are endless and have nothing to do with bribery.
   
   There is so much you're leaving out here it makes my head want to explode. I've never seen such a simplistic, yet so angry and misdirected take on medical errors. On top of that, you dragged 9/11 into the story for effect that is unnecessary.
   
   Sit in an OR one afternoon. Pay attention to the folks handling and opening the sterile instruments and other materials. They should be counting the items. When the procedure is over, they should be counting again to make sure something wasn't left inside a patient. That's just one way we're working to prevent these kinds of mistakes. Residents don't walk out of med school as perfect beings and they learn from their mistakes. Some things just go hand in hand with the training. There is a lot to improve on.
   
   There is so much more I could say in a much more organized fashion, but caspergirl, your take on this is far from complete.

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2. 

   8/14/09

   cooper

   It's not medicare harm it's that doctors are the third leading cause of death in this country. Or so it was a few years ago I haven't read up on it recently, but it is not exactly new news. Some hospitals have cross trained housekeeping and lab to save money and increase profits, some doctors do unnecessary procedure in facilitates they own or not, sometime the need for speed and more profit takes precedent over the patient, doctors don't spend enough time with patients to actually get a good enough history to evaluate what is wrong. Patients have become a gross national product..... sorry folks that is what an unregulated health insurance market does, that is what a consumer driven society provokes.....welcome to America

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3. 

   8/14/09

   caspergirl35

   Maybe you should pay attention to the news and or your newspaper. As I stated this is a story I have been following and in fact was just recently Front page in many newspapers.
   There is nothing else to say for a Doctor or anyone else who "kills" someone by mistake and does not report it.
   
   Are you saying you would not want to know how many Deadly mistakes the surgeon who is going to operate on you has had..
   
   That is part of the problem with this country...
   the pecking order..
   Stand up and be heard and stop following the crowd. Are you saying if you saw a crime committed you wouldn't do or say anything about it?

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   1. 

      8/14/09

      dailymindjob

      Caspergirl, that's what I'm saying. Not me personally, but people who work in this system behave that way. If you couldn't already tell, I'm quite familiar with health care. If I read about this stuff in the news, it's old news to me. The pecking order is strong. Mandatory reporting as you suggest isn't going to change that. It's become built into the system. It's unfortunate. I agree. I'm not disputing whether or not what goes on is wrong. I'm disputing your proposed solution. Your simplistic fix-all solution is like sticking a boot up someone's ass. It makes sense when you say it and it should motivate, but in reality, it's not a viable solution. It's a complex situation. You're just focusing on patient mortality. You haven't even scratched the surface until you add patient morbidity to the story.
      
      Forgot to add one more thing to the end there. In health care, there is a lot of "it's not my job" attitude. Nurses have it. Lab techs have it. Pathologists and pathologist assistants have it. Physician assistants have it. Pencil pushers have it. My obligation is to the patient, first and foremost. Very few physicians have it (when it pertains to their own patient, but it's a toss up for someone else's patient) because by the time the nurses, pa's, and lab techs have all said it's not their job, the problem is at the doctor's feet and he or she will deal with it tout de suite. Want to fix the pecking order problem? Those are the people you need to be after.
4. 

   8/25/09

   MadameX

   "According to Nancy Ann DeParle (Obama's health advisor), "the best thing to do is to create the incentives and the knowledge around best practices to prevent the errors".
   
   How do you create an incentive for a Doctor to report what really happened?"
   
   Your fast twist here is interesting. She said we should be creating incentives and knowledge to PREVENT ERRORS...you asked how we would create an incentive for REPORTING. If you want to equivocate and slip this kind of scope shift by people, it's generally best to put a little more space between the actual quote and your misstatement of it.
   
   What do you see as the value of nationwide reporting, as opposed to reporting within states (which control professional licensing and discipline)?

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