Deaths from medical mistakes occur one patient at a time. Yet, taken together in Canada, they are the equivalent of a large city bus full of passengers crashing and killing everyone on board every day of the year. So why is there so little focus on this epidemic of harm? (Published in The Huffington Post) […]
It should be no more acceptable to encounter an absence of compassion, kindness and respect in the healthcare setting than it is to buy a new car and discover they forgot to include the brakes. Yet it happens to patients and families everyday around the world, along with the emotional harm it unleashes. (Published in […]
The prognosis for the IOM’s newest bombshell on diagnostic errors is not encouraging. Its first report in 1999 on medical errors promised a 50 percent reduction in 5 years. Since then the number of deaths has soared to the point where hospital harm is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. and Canada. […]
More than a decade late and half the size of the U.S. version, Canada’s hospital “never” list falls short in giving patients and families the protection they need (Published in The Huffington Post, September 23, 2015) As of last Friday, sawing off the wrong limb became a “never” event in Canada. It’s one of 15 incidents the Canadian Patient Safety Institute […]
“Too often, healthcare organisations, through their inept and unfeeling responses, amplify these later waves of harm rather than mitigating their damaging effects.” Sir Liam Donaldson, M.D., world-renowned patient safety advocate. Patients and families share their stories about medical errors and their emotional impact We hear heart-wrenching stories every day from patients and families who have experienced […]
(Published in The Huffington Post) Visit any major city in North America and you will quickly discover the link between cash and name recognition in healthcare. Some rich person gives a few million to an urban hospital and their name goes up on a wing. Recently, a generous $3 million donation by one time investment […]
A safe patient is an informed patient. In today’s world, that means having the information we need to make informed healthcare choices. Nowhere is this more important than in the hospital setting. In the United States, the move to make hospitals safer has spun a virtual cottage industry of rating systems that score hospitals on […]
(Published in the Huffington Post May 8, 2015) Being hospitalized today presents a serious dilemma to both patients and families. You need hospital care because of some condition or disease. But you may also need protection from the hospital and the harm that can occur. One night several years ago, when my mother was […]
An investigation by Canada’s largest regulator of pharmacists found that a hospital in south-central Ontario was allowing an unregulated pharmacy assistant to work in its pharmacy without required supervision by a licensed pharmacist. The work included entering doctor’s prescriptions into the computer prior to being sent to the nursing floor. The investigation followed complaints that […]