In his five years on the job, Dr. Ernie Ring taught me why the Chief Medical Officer role is crucial, and how to do it right. Since Ernie is retiring at week’s end, it seems like an opportune time to share what I’ve learned. A bit of background. UCSF Medical Center didn’t have a Chief [...]
Archive | June, 2008
The Best and Worst of Times For “Infection Preventionists”
As I mentioned in my last post, these should be the best of times for “Infection Preventionists” (formerly known as Infection Control Officers). After years of trying to get someone – anyone – to pay attention to their work, their day in the sun has finally arrived. But they are far from a joyful bunch. [...]
How Infection Prevention Came to Dominate the Patient Safety Movement
The Joint Commission just released its 2009 National Patient Safety Goals, and – no surprise – they focus on infection prevention. While this seems natural today, it wasn’t always so. In fact, the conflation of infection control and patient safety is one of the most surprising twists of the patient safety revolution. The inclusion – [...]
Announcing our Hospitalist CME Course, and a New Hospitalist Mini-College
A quick heads-up for those of you thinking about attending this year’s Management of the Hospitalized Patient (MHP) conference, October 23-25 in SF… we’re adding a hands-on, small group “Hospitalist Mini-College” pre-course. I think it will be tremendous. This will be our 12th Annual MHP conference (co-sponsored by the Society of Hospital Medicine). It is [...]
Could Intensivists Be Harmful to ICU Patients’ Health?
Of all the structural (how care is organized) “evidence-based markers of high quality care,” perhaps the most ironclad has been the involvement of critical care physicians in the care of ICU patients. That is, until now. In a sophisticated study in today’s Annals of Internal Medicine, Levy and colleagues mine a decade-old, 100-hospital, 123-ICU database [...]
Why Diagnostic Errors Don’t Get Any Respect… And What Can Be Done About It
I gave a keynote yesterday to the first-ever meeting on “Diagnostic Error in Medicine.” I hope the confab helps put diagnostic errors on the safety map. But, as Ricky Ricardo would say, the experts and advocates in the audience have some ‘splainin’ to do. I date the origin of the patient safety field to the [...]
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