Phrases to Resist (I)

There are many everyday phrases that we need to resist. We have already touched on #1 worst phrase - "It's_____Fault!" The next common phrase we must resist (for our own good) is: "Why the hell don't we have ______?"

Think about the most frequent mistake made in medicine: drug errors. It has been well documented that every patient is subjected to at least one medication mistake per hospital stay, Hearing this, we are tempted to shout: "Why the hell don't we have a computer program that prevents over-dosing, allergic reactions, and adverse drug interactions?"

There are many reasons why we don't have a medication safety system. Listing these reasons may be emotionally satisfying but gets us no closer to having what we want: protection.

President Kennedy did not whine why don't we have a man on the moon? He said: "We will put a man on the moon in ten years." And nine years later we did, even though when he said it, it was impossible.

We need to go right past "why don't we have ______" and state exactly what we want in health care and in everything else for that matter.

Problem: Patients frequently get the wrong drugs. RESIST: Why don't we have_____!? Say: We want an automatic, not human-dependent system that prevents harm from the drugs that are supposed to help.

Problem: Patients can be injured while receiving health care, but only those who sue successfully get compensation. RESIST: Why don't we have_____!? Say: Create a system that helps all injured patients, not just some.

Problem: There aren't enough doctors and nurses. RESIST: Why don't we have_____!? Say: Change things so that people want to enter and to stay in healthcare.

We spend entirely too much time complaining and arguing about WHY don't we have something - time that would be better spent stating clearly and precisely what it is we DO want.

What do you think?

Comments

[jhNY]

Drug errors and injuries that occur during medical practice are most often the result of the effecfts of overwork on the medical practitioners, especially in a hospital setting, where interns routinely work more than a dozen hours per shift. The greed of insurors and the senior doctors overseeing staff are to blame. Even when, as in New York, laws are passed to limit working hours, the laws are flaunted with impunity. That's the problem. What do you think?

[Deane Waldman - Huffpost Blogger]

jhNY,
Thanks for your input.
Overwork and greed are partly to blame. You and I both know that blaming never solves a problem (but it sure feels good). Even if we could -- by magic -- make insurers altruistic and adjust the priorities of administrative people to "patients first," there would still be drug errors.

The answer is simple: an automatic, not human-dependent computer system that prevents the error before it occurs, regardless of work schedules, financial incentives, cognitive dissonance, bottles that look the same, etc. Such a system is NOT hard to construct. Unfortunately, what we always get from the government types tasked with creating such a system [ask Dr. David Brailer] is: "Yes, but..."

A clear, over-riding mandate to create such a system is what we need. It would be very expensive but cheaper (net) than what we now have. It would require changing or throwing out much current legislation. Bottom line: it is not happening because of an acronym that I created but I hate: DIBEWIG, which stands for "Different is bad even when it's good."

[jhNY]

Blaming, if done with some concern for accuracy, points to a problem's cause, however. If somebody gives you a hotfoot, it's more important to put the fire out first, but afterward, you need to know who's got the matches or you risk a fire on the other foot sometime in the future.

And no matter what computer system you install to keep track of dosage, etc., if the person inputting the data is burned out from overwork, or just gets too overwhelmed on the job to do sufficient inputting, we've still got problems. I spent much of my life in the audio recording business, an industry in which long hours at high volume is routine. Through expensive trial and error, I eventually concluded that it was a waste of my money to work with a mixing engineer who had been working more than 8 or 10 hours, because his ears were too fatigued to hear the full range of aural frequencies well enough to do his best work. Why should surgeons and doctors hold themselves and their patients' health to a lower standard?