Posted on 08/23/2005 5:55:51 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
A GLOBAL initiative to stop hospital errors will focus on the old dictum "first, do no harm" by encouraging health care workers to clean up their acts, health officials said today.
They said hospital employees all over the world should heed the advice attributed to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, and the best way to do that is improve hygiene habits.
"Infection complicates the treatment and care of millions of patients worldwide every year," Sir Liam Donaldson, Chair of the World Alliance for Patient Safety, told a news conference in Washington.
"As a result, some patients become more seriously ill than they would have been otherwise, some experience long-term disability and some die."
The World Health Organisation is trying to lead a coordinated effort globally to reduce the errors, which the US Institute of Medicine estimates kill as many as 98,000 every year in the United States alone.
The US Food and Drug Administration estimates as many as 1.3 million Americans are injured by medication errors every year.
The Health and Human Services Department has been working on a nationwide electronic prescribing, records and inventory control system to help reduce those errors.
Other countries have similar problems, and the new collaboration will encourage hospitals to compare notes on what works to reduce such errors.
"Patient safety has made significant strides in some parts of the world during the past 10 years, thanks to a willingness to acknowledge that adverse events occur in health care and that a systematic approach must be employed to reduce the very real risk of patient harm," Karen Timmons, chief executive officer of the Joint Commission International, said in a statement.
The effort by WHO, the non-profit Joint Commission International and its US parent the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Resources, will focus on some of the simpler issues first.
These include clean hands, clean practices, clean products, a clean environment and clean equipment, Donaldson said.
Several studies have shown that doctors, nurses and other health care workers routinely fail to wash their hands and disinfect equipment.
Because continual hand washing can irritate skin and take time, hospitals are finding solutions such as keeping hand sanitiser by every door may work better.
And the group will also start a patient education campaign urging patients to speak up if there are any questions about care or hygiene and to designate a friend or relative to act as an advocate.
When death is one of your products, accidental death is just a productivity improvement!
More seriously, hospitals are a quality assurance train wreck. It would be hard to do worse.
"...errors, which the US Institute of Medicine estimates kill as many as 98,000 every year in the United States alone."
Estimates vary, but the general statistic from public safety groups is that about 40% of American households with children also have firearms. (about 11,000,000 homes). According to the Rand Corp. a 2001 survey shows about 13% of those homes leave their firearms loaded and unlocked. (1,430,000 homes). The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that a child or teen is killed in a gun related accident or suicide every 8 hours. (about 1095 kids a year).
In 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are available, more than 800 children 14 years old and younger were treated in hospital emergency rooms for unintentional gun injuries.
Combine the injuries and the deaths for about 2000 kids a year killed or injured by firearms.
If my math is correct, of all homes with kids and firearms the death or injury rate is .01818%.
Of home where firearms are left loaded and unlocked the rate is .13986%.
The way I figure it, I'll take my chances with unlocked and loaded firearms than with a trip to the hospital to see a doctor unless it's life or death.
HA HA
that "study" was a crock then and only was used to help the liability parasites... did you see what the definition of an "error" was. whether it had any causative effect on patient outcome.
Funny thing is that when most of those lawyers get sick.. do they go to Canada or Sweden or England... or Cuba... for their great compassionate medical care and "holistic" treatments...
Where do the richest people in the world go for top of the line med treatment?
Are there mistakes, yep. Do some doctors suck... yep again. But this method of demonizing the doctors and medicine in general in order to hit the liability lottery will someday come home and bite all of us.... it's already doing so in ways that the general public hasn't a clue.
That's kind of risky. When I was in my 20's, a routine physical exam turned up a problem that would have eventually killed me without treatment. Had I waited until symptoms occurred before going to the doctor, instead of getting a routine screening, I might not have survived. As it turned out, I got a simple surgical treatment before symptoms ever appeared, and the problem has not recurred.< /jumping off soapbox >
Too late...Michael Moore's already been born.
a mistake is giving a pill to the wrong person.....a mistake is NOT giving the right pill to the right person and still have complications.....
almost ALL medicines can be harmful to the elderly.......almost ALL......
actual "mistakes" happen, thank God not as many as a zillion dollar basketball player makes.....when those zillion dollar athletes miss a free throw, people shrug......if they hit 75% they are considered to be REALLY REALLY GOOD.......
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