(Published in The Huffington Post) Canadians and Americans buy and drive similar cars and trucks. They also suffer heart attacks and strokes. Sometimes, they need surgery. But while Canadians, like their American cousins, can read reviews on the safety, reliability and quality of a Ford or Jeep before they invest their hard-earned dollars, the same […]
(Published in The Huffington Post) A government agency in Ontario has called for nursing homes in that province to re-evaluate their use of antipsychotic medications like quetiapine (marketed under the brand name Seroquel). Health Quality Ontario says more than 60 percent of residents in some nursing homes are receiving Seroquel and other drugs like it. […]
It’s time for a top-to-bottom review of just how user-friendly and fair our healthcare complaint bodies really are. You expect that casinos are going to be slanted in favor of the house. But you don’t imagine those kind of odds when it comes to complaints about hospitals and healthcare providers that may have caused […]
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 […]