How Hospital Administrators Can Improve Safety
In the latest edition of www.healthaffairs.org, two attorneys who represent doctors and hospitals authored an important article on the role of hospital leadership in the prevention of medical errors and the improvement of healthcare. The article is written in response to Dr. Jonathan Welch’s tragic experience in dealing with the care of his mother in a hospital.
The authors pose several questions aimed at the role of hospital administrators in improving the quality of healthcare in the hospital setting. Here are some of the questions they pose:
1)Do nurses feel they are able to discuss concerns about patient care with attending physicians?
2)Would nurse managers have been aware of and acted on this situation as it developed?
3)Would this kind of event have been identified and investigated to determine the root cause of the failure of care and implement remedial measures?
These are just a few of the questions posed in the article. They are good questions in that they frankly address the issues underlying medical errors in hospitals.
1-800-662-6230 or abramson@arbd.com
