In 2001, when my colleagues and I ranked nearly 100 patient safety practices on the strength of their supporting evidence (for an AHRQ report), healthcare IT didn’t make the top 25. We took a lot of heat for, as one prominent patient safety advocate chided me, “slowing down the momentum.” Some called us Luddites. Although [...]
Archive | October, 2009
"This American Life" on Why the Healthcare System is Out of Control
If you can spare 2 hours, do yourself a favor by listening to the two-part healthcare series on NPR’s extraordinary show, This American Life. By using examples that are memorable for their simplicity and lack of hyperbole, the series (the episodes are here and here) does a superb job illustrating how we got into the [...]
Can Patients Help Ensure Their Own Safety? More Importantly, Why Should They Have To?
Sticking with my recent hand hygiene theme, an interesting study came out last week demonstrating that outpatients were willing to help audit their providers’ hand hygiene practices. The patients felt that snooping on their docs didn’t poison the physician-patient relationship. Moreover, their observations were accurate and the program was dirt (probably the wrong word) cheap, [...]
Stephen Colbert’s Riotously Funny Interview of a Lobbyist for Universal Healthcare
In the 9th installment of his 35,000 part series, “Better Know a Lobby,” Colbert interviews the head of “Health Care for America Now,” Richard Kirsch. The whole thing is hilarious, but the funniest portion comes at 3:45, when Colbert asks Kirsch to choose between saving universal healthcare or an old lady from drowning. The healthcare [...]
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