September 2009 - Posts

• Physician Accountability for Violation of Safety Rules: The Time For Excuses Has Passed

  In this week’s New England Journal, Peter Pronovost and I make the case for striking a new balance between “no blame” and accountability. Come on folks, it’s time.At most hospitals, hand hygiene rates hover between 30-70%, and it’s a near-miracle when Read More... Posted Wed, Sep 30 2009 7:51 AM by Bob Wachter | 27 Comments Filed under: Hospital Care, Patient Safety/Medical Errors, Health Policy, Medical Ethics

• An Overlooked but Dangerous Handoff… of One Million Patients at a Time

  A quick heads up on an article written by a very talented UCSF psychiatrist named John Young, which I had the opportunity to co-author. John observed that, despite all the recent literature about handoffs (such as here and here), no one has given much Read More... Posted Mon, Sep 28 2009 7:44 AM by Bob Wachter | 2 Comments Filed under: Medical Education/Academia, Information Technology, Ambulatory/Primary Care, Patient Safety/Medical Errors

• Board Certification for Hospitalists: It’s Heeeere!

  In a little over a decade, the field of hospital medicine has achieved most of the milestones that characterize a specialty: the field is the fastest growing specialty in medical history, it has achieved wide recognition and acceptance, and there are Read More... Posted Wed, Sep 23 2009 11:46 PM by Bob Wachter | 10 Comments Filed under: Hospital Care, Medical Education/Academia, Hospitalists/Hospital Medicine, Health Policy

• Hospital Incident Reporting Systems: Time to Slay the Beast

  When the patient safety field began a decade ago with the publication of the IOM report on medical errors, one of its first thrusts was to import lessons from “safer” industries, particularly aviation. Most of these lessons – a focus on bad systems more Read More... Posted Sun, Sep 20 2009 10:27 AM by Bob Wachter | 12 Comments Filed under: Hospital Care, Transparency and Reporting, Quality Measurement, Patient Safety/Medical Errors, Health Policy

• Could This Be What He Planned All Along?

  A conventional look at the The Speech: Obama over-learned the lessons of Hillary-care; he gave Congress too long a leash; he lost control of the message; the wacko’s attacked with a barrage of Socialist/Nazi/Plug-Pulling-on-Grandma-isms; not only was Read More... Posted Fri, Sep 11 2009 6:55 AM by Bob Wachter | 8 Comments Filed under: Health Policy, Media/Press Coverage