Engineers in the medical field focus daily on designing innovations that improve patient care. More and more hospital administrators and clinicians focus daily on improving patient safety.
The medical community is trying to put the "health" back into healthcare, but for those who have lost a loved one to a preventable death it is not happening fast enough.
Medical errors are still the third-leading cause of death in the United States. It costs the U.S. approximately $1.26 trillion and takes more lives than highway accidents, breast cancer and AIDS combined. One in four Medicare patients will be harmed by their treatment, and according to the World Health Organization, one out of 10 Americans will be impacted by a medical error. The statistics are staggering and don't even take into account the hundreds of thousands who survive, but leave the hospital with a new illness or injury, and that may require a lifetime of follow-up care.
The truth is that it is not easy to change systems that have been in place for decades, if not longer. There are a lot of challenges facing hospital administrators and clinicians. The hospital is a business with a need to make profits and compete. Like any business, there is a fear of liability when mistakes happen. Clinicians have been taught that medical mistakes are an inevitable part of practicing medicine. Today, we are realizing that eradicating preventable patient deaths is possible and the common denominator in hospitals that have had success is their ability to create a culture of safety and transparency. Safety has become their number one priority and how everyone is trained and rewarded.
For example, hospital-associated infections plague the majority of hospitals. MedStar Health, a hospital group in Maryland and the District of Columbia reported six of their 10 hospitals had zero catheter-associated infections last year. The University of Vermont Medical Center was recently given the Top Infection Prevention Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for their work in eliminating infections. Change is possible.
It is not easy being a patient today. We have many hospital rankings, but most are not focused on actual safety data. Many of us are taught from day one not to question our clinicians. It is an unwritten rule that they know more than us and our job is to simply follow their direction. If we ask too many questions, we fear that we will be seen as a 'difficult' patient.
Today, patient advocates and select hospitals are teaching people that it is ok to ask questions and speak up about their care. It could be something as simple as asking your nurse or doctor if they have washed their hands. Unfortunately, this is still very uncomfortable for many. Some clinicians are not used to the patient questioning their choices. Many hospitals don't take too kindly to an admission of a medical mistake. When a medical error does arise, patients are faced with silence, a lack of transparency and empathy. To make matters worse, patients end up paying for the aftermath of a medical error. In no other industry do you have to pay the organization for the procedure that harmed you and the after-care that is needed to fix the problem.
If the airline industry noticed that two jumbo jets were crashing every day with no survivors, they would probably stop flights until the problem was resolved. We are losing the same number of adults and children, but cannot shut down the hospitals so we need to fix this problem as rapidly and efficiently as possible. We can't begin real change without the transparency that gives us the actual numbers of preventable patient deaths and the reasons behind them. We need to continually identify the main challenges and provide solutions that can be easily replicated.
We know that healthcare-associated infections are a huge issue and what steps are needed to significantly reduce them, yet many hospitals have not adopted the proven protocols. We know that patients die from post-operative respiratory depression due to the use of medications to ease their pain, yet many hospitals still don't use the technology available to them to closely monitor after surgery. We know 80% of serious medical errors involve miscommunication during hand-off between clinicians, yet we continue to use the same processes. We know that there is overuse or unnecessary use of red blood cell transfusions and that studies have shown they can increase mortality by 69% and morbidity by 88%, yet many clinicians continue to follow what they were trained to do in medical school years ago. In this country, we have access to amazing medical technologies, yet there is no interoperability or data sharing.
We are losing more than 200,000 mothers, fathers, spouses and children per year to preventable patient deaths. Every hospital, clinician and patient would agree that even one preventable patient death is one too many. We have the science and technology to eradicate medical errors. We have the ability to get the best minds in the world together and identify the challenges and provide tested solutions. Even the government is getting involved with programs like Obamacare, which does not provide reimbursement for re-admissions. We live at a time when medical devices can "talk" to each other and when necessary alert clinicians or shut off something that is causing patient harm. Zero preventable deaths are possible. The key is that everyone needs to get involved and stay involved. We need everyone to make a public commitment, share challenges and solutions, and be held accountable to follow through.
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