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N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5 | O U T P A T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T
It's not disclosed publicly. There
are patient privacy issues, after all.
Also, errors happen to individual
patients, not groups of patients —
unless actions by a provider affect
a group of patients, like the Las
Vegas GI doc who reused propofol
vials. As Joseph Stalin put it, "One
death is a tragedy. A million deaths
is a statistic."
That's why Dr. Rothfield used the
story of Ms. Rivers to drive home
the peg he would hang his talk on.
"It changes the nature of the discus-
sion when you talk about 1 person,"
says Dr. Rothfield, system vice presi-
dent and chief medical officer at St. Vincent's Healthcare in Jacksonville,
Fla. "My talk was 15 minutes of Joan Rivers and 45 minutes of patient
safety. I'm still committed to the idea that we can do better."
Nobody likes the spotlight or the finger pointed at them, but the
death of Ms. Rivers has drawn attention to the safety of outpatient
surgery. Granted, publicity about preventable medical errors would
hurt the healthcare industry in the short term. But in the long term, it
could help us tremendously.
"Hopefully, the positive from this scrutiny will be a re-evaluation of
policies and practices, and safety culture at surgical centers that
result in improvements to patient safety," says Dr. Rothfield.
It's said that a death is meaningful if it imparts lessons others can
learn from. Dr. Rothfield highlighted 3 lessons that can improve safety
at your facility.
Kenneth Rothfield, MD, MBA, CPE
Pamela
Bevelhymer,
RN,
BSN