Dennis Quaid and Discussion of Medical Mistakes on Oprah Tuesday

Dennis Quaid Takes Oprah To Hospital That OD'd His Babies

This might be the first time I'm DVR-ing the Oprah show. Tomorrow, actor Dennis Quaid will talk about the medical errors that nearly killed his twin babies.

For the first time since their twins were given an overdose of blood thinner, Dennis Quaid and his wife have returned to the Los Angeles hospital that administered the drug for an episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Harpo Productions said in a release Thursday that Quaid and his wife, Kimberly, wanted to visit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to see what steps have been taken to ensure a similar mistake won't happen again.

The newborn twins were administered too much Heparin in November 2007. They recovered, and the Quaids settled with the hospital for $750,000 in December.

Here are my earlier posts about the incident:

I hope there's some good discussion on the show about systemic errors and the need for prevention. How can we prevent this same error from occurring again at other hospitals with other babies? Don't forget the same error occurred, with fatal effects, in Indianapolis a year earlier:

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  Lack of Error Proofing Kills 3 Babies

I'll write more after watching the show this week.

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Mark Graban

Mark Graban is an internationally-recognized consultant, author, and professional speaker who has worked in healthcare, manufacturing, and startups. He is author of the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, as well as The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen. His most recent book is the anthology Practicing Lean that benefits the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation, where Mark is a board member. Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus. His latest book has been released as an "in-progress" book, titled Measures of Success.