Full Table of Contents
_______________

Abbreviated
Table of Contents

Home Page
Patient Safety
Silence vs
    Safety
Silenced
White wall
    of Silence
Silencing
Conflict Of
    Interest
Psychology of
    Providers
Subjectivity
Blacklisting  
Nurse survey
Loyalty
Mobbing and
    bullying
Trust Us
Defensive
    documenting
Report Rate
Risk
    managemnt
SOAP
Management
Hospitals
Crime in
    medicine
Sexual Abuse
Liability
    Limitations
Free Speech
    for Patients
Exploitation

OSMB Medical
    Boards
Mammography
solutions
Medical errors
Medical Complaints
One number
Links

Injured patients who want to help and be heard, click here.

Thomas Jefferson said that given the choice between government without newspapers and newspapers without government, he would choose newspapers.

In medicine we have government without newspapers. Patients cannot find out what they need to know to make informed choices. No one in medicine records or reports the information patients need to know the most. So patients will have to do it.

Medical Errors

According to a national poll conducted by the National Patient Safety Foundation:

• Forty-two percent of respondents had been affected by a medical error, either personally or through a friend or relative.

• Thirty-two percent of the respondents indicated that the error had a permanent negative effect on the patient's health.

According to the Journal of the America Medical Association (footnoted here):

• Serious adverse drug reactions and fatal drug reactions are the fourth and sixth leading cause of death in hospitalized patients in the USA.

That is just the beginning of the statistics and they are only statistics about errors. The patient safety debate revolves around errors. No one asks darker questions. A great deal of attention is spent making sure that feathers are not ruffled. Reputations must be protected. Operators must not be blamed. Is the assumption that making clincians feel safe will cause them to behave better? It doesn't work that way in other fields.

It is great for people to be working so hard to find the causes of errors. But can we really expect to make progress in eliminating errors in an arena where we cannot even discover, investigate or punish criminal activity? However rare crime might be in medicine (and there is no legitimate reason to believe it is any less rare there than in the population in general), having systems in place that can address unfriendly practices, including abuse and violence against patients, is the rock bottom foundation of patient safety, but it is not part of the discussion. It is difficult to view with credibility the efforts of people purporting to be interested in the safety of patients when they do not understand even the need to protect them from predators.

When hospital administrators, physicians, nurses, anesthesiologists, orderlies and all the other personnel in healthcare will not even report drunken and/or libidinous and/or criminal behavior in healthcare (see loyalty), even when lives are lost or ruined as a result, can they be reliable reporters of anything else?

I applaud all efforts to reduce errors and create a culture of safety, but fundamental problems are being ignored that cannot be ignored if progress is to be made.

_____________________________________________________________

Home | Table of Contents | It's a Path
Silence versus Patient Safety
Loyalty versus Patient Safety
The White Wall of Silence versus Patient Safety
Blacklisting Patients
Freedom of Speech for Patients
Medical Complaints - How to

 < Truth / Justice / Patient Safety >
It's a path

If you want to say something about any of my sites, my phone number is on almost every page. So is my email address. There even are Feedback Forms where you can communicate anonymously. I am listening. I will be sensitive to what you say.

To contact me, click email
or call 513-348-4744 in the USA
Copyright © 2010 All rights reserved
Revised August 29, 2010