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October in the news "New Rules on Medical Mistakes" The July 1, 2001 regulations come from the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations whose leader has advised that medicine "must radically change their thinking about medical mistakes. "We need to create a culture where errors are openly discussed and studied." The JCAHO chief, Dennis O'Leary noted, "the instinct is to say 'Oh, my God, how can we cover it up? Who can we blame?" The article goes on to speak about the evolution of air safety before and after the "confess up" approach was taken. In 1954, the U.S. Navy lost 776 planes that represented a loss of more than 50 aircraft for every 100,000 flying hours, but in 1999, the loss ratio dropped to 1.4 aircraft for every 100,000 hours of flight time and, in the commercial sector, that number dropped to a failure rate of 0.018 percent! The theory is if the same "scrutinize and manage" approach was applied to health care, the same dramatic safety increase could be attained. When an aviation safety expert spoke to physicians in Houston, he observed, "The doctors didn't get the point. They still think if you make an error, you're a bad doctor." In support of this view, a physician was quoted as saying, "when I was trained as a doctor, my expectation was that I would be perfect. It's the myth of medicine." The article went on to reference pilot training and the use of six-month performance tests and the absence of the same in health care. This issue is building steam as the new regulations indicate. The way it is likely to end up over time is with licensure for a time certain and then requalification or continual requalification. It is out there, ladies and gentlemen. Trivia question from the above article: In 1966, there were how many prescription drugs? And in 2001, there are how many prescription drugs? Then 300, today 10,000! My thanks to Dr. Gerry Clum for this article. |
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