Editor’s Notebook: Seeing the World Through Patient Safety Eyes

Editor’s Notebook

Seeing the World Through Patient Safety Eyes

 

I wish that everyone could learn and practice the skills we ask healthcare professionals to acquire in the name of safety and quality improvement. We’d all be better off, and many things in the world would work better if we respected each other and communicated well.

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Health IT & Quality: Raison d’Être

Health IT & Quality

Raison d’Être

 

What is the purpose of health information technology? Why are we spending all these billions of dollars on this “thing” we struggle to understand, implement, and use? Is it achieving the goals of its purpose?

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Health Information Exchange: NHIN: The New Health Internet

Health Information Exchange

NHIN: The New Health Internet

 

I have not been a big fan of the National Health Information Network (NHIN) concept. It was — and in large part still is — a top-heavy federal government effort to create a nationwide infrastructure to facilitate the exchange of clinical information. That is a high, lofty, and admirable goal, but one that is too far in front of where the market is today.

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Five Essential Components of an Effective Stroke System

Five Essential Components of an Effective Stroke System

 

Approximately 795,000 Americans will have a stroke this year. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States and a leading cause of serious, long-term adult disability. The direct and indirect costs associated with stroke are projected to exceed $65 billion in 2009, according to the National Stroke Association.

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Is Patient Safety Part of Something Larger?

I keep seeing examples of what I think of as a
patient safety approach to problems: an emphasis on clear
communication, teamwork, systems thinking, disclosing and learning from
errors, and personal accountability balanced with an understanding of
the inevitability of human error. These principles have relevance and
benefits beyond patient safety — beyond medicine…

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