BREAKING: Big Expose Coming on Medical Errors and Deaths

From their press release about the story:

An estimated 200,000 Americans will die needlessly from preventable medical mistakes and hospital infections this year, according to “Dead By Mistake,” a wide-ranging Hearst national investigation, which began reporting the findings today [www.deadbymistake.com]. Despite an authoritative federal report 10 years ago that laid out the scope of the problem and urged the federal and state governments and the medical community to take clear and tangible steps to reduce the number of fatal medical errors, a staggering 98,000 Americans die from preventable medical errors each year and just as many from hospital-acquired infections.

“Dead By Mistake” is the result of an investigation conducted by Hearst newspaper and television journalists.

The report concludes that the industry has made little progress in the last 10 years in really addressing the causes of errors and poor patient care. It has been 10 years since the publication of the ground-breaking study and book To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System.

The Healthcare Value Leaders Network (updated site coming soon), a partnership run by the Lean Enterprise Institute and the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value, will be putting out some statements to try to help highlight how there ARE some examples of hospitals make dramatic improvements through Lean methods.

It will be interesting to see how much patient safety and quality reach the top of the discussion about health care reform. Will this report cut through the noise about payment reform and coverage? Or will it stay under the radar as a niche issue?

How will the industry react? Discrediting the study – the data or the methodology? Or by reacting to really try to change processes and culture in hospitals?

Will Lean be discussed as part of the solution?

Stay tuned…

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