Is Healthcare Harm a Misadventure or a choice?
As a nurse, a patient and a consumer, I know I have to make wise choices for my Health and my healthcare. Last year, I had to choose the best doctor and best Hospital for my cancer surgery. It was no small task. I also had to choose a healthy approach to my surgery. I drank more water for several days, ate iron rich foods, exercised more (better late than never), clipped and scrubbed under my nails and did antiseptic showers each of the 3 days up and to the day of surgery. I had a stellar healthcare outcome. Since my surgery, I have made even more choices to be healthier, like going on a weight loss diet and moving more. Although I stumbled a bit with this effort over the Holidays, I will continue in the New Year to lose excess weight. That chore will be accomplished by even more choices…choosing healthier foods, less sugar and fat, and more protein, fruits and vegetables.
I believe I am making a lot of the right choices for myself.
Are Hospitals making the right choices for patients?
It’s all about choices isn’t it?
When a Hospital chooses not to invest in patient safety and infection control programs and practices that are known to work, patients suffer.
When they choose to chronically under staff, and patients are not getting the direct care they need when they need it, patients suffer.
When they fail to coordinate admissions and keep infected or colonized patients separate from unaffected patients, patients suffer.
When a direct caregiver chooses not wash their hands before patient contact, or chooses not to use the 5 rights of medication administration, or chooses not to use a check list or a time out prior to surgery or other medical procedures, patients suffer.
This is a short list of choices that are made by Hospitals and caregivers every day. So, when I heard recently that medical harm is called a “misadventure” by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, I was dumbfounded. Healthcare is not an adventure or a fairy tale. Illness and injuries are a brutal reality for human beings. None of us choose to be sick.
My colleagues in Patient Safety have treaded lightly when talking about medical harm, errors and infections. None of us believe that these things are deliberate or intentional. We do however believe that most healthcare harm is preventable. Errors and infections that occur over and over are no longer errors. They continue to occur because poor or inadequate preventative choices have been made. Patients suffer every day because of healthcare harm, and I believe that much of that harm is because of poor choices. Choices are made every day in Hospitals and other healthcare settings that can cause preventable harm to patients and unnecessary suffering.
Let’s all work together to make better Patient Safety choices in 2013.
