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J U N E 2 0 1 4 | O R E X C E L L E N C E. C O M S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T P AT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E
A
merican medicine, the envy of the
world, still sees such unthinkable
errors as wrong-site, wrong-patient
and wrong-procedure surgeries,
retained objects, and fatal medica-
tion errors in frequencies that have not significantly
declined over the past decade. According to Marty
Makary, MD, MPH, FACS, associate professor of
health policy and management at Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore,
Md., the blame for these incidents extends well
beyond a moment's distraction, to the way that
healthcare practitioners have been trained to do
business and what they do and don't communicate
to each other and their patients. In "How
Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care," he
isn't afraid to call it as he sees it.
• More is less. As a busy doctor, I have watched
patients increasingly fed up with a fragmented
health care system littered with perverse incentives.
It's an industry that does not abide by the same prin-
ciples of accountability for performance that govern
other industries. Instead, our health care system
leaves its customers walking in blind. All while sim-
ply rewarding doctors for doing more.
K I C K E R
S heddi n g L i ght on S ur ge r y
Dr. Makary explores how
transparency would improve patient care.
Marty Makary, MD, MPH, FACS
where leaders meet, learn and grow together
Speaker Profile
• Practices advanced
laparoscopic pan-
creatic surger y at
Johns Hopkins Hospital
in Baltimore, Md.
• Associate professor
of health policy and
management at Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health.
• Pioneered research
on the use of surgical
safety checklists.
• Author of
"Unaccountable:
What Hospitals
Won't Tell You and
How Transparency
Can Revolutionize
Health Care."
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