Miscellaneous

Avoiding the "Oops!" Moment

By Anne Skove, Esq.

Amputating the wrong limb. Giving the wrong type of blood. Misreading the dosage. Leaving a tool inside of a body.

No matter where you stand on medical malpractice issues, read enough cases (or even one very scary one) and you have to admit that reducing the amount of "Oops!" moments can only be a good thing.

The good news is, some of these mistakes can be easily avoided if simple procedures are in place. Checklists are one tool being used more and more by medical professionals (and patients).

Checklists run the gamut, from having doctors introduce themselves to patients to having staff ensure there is enough blood on hand in case of an emergency. Checklists are relatively low-cost, require little extra training, and are not difficult to implement.

Can something this simple work? Apparently so. According to the NYT, "a year after surgical teams at eight hospitals adopted a 19-item checklist, the average patient death rate fell more than 40 percent and the rate of complications fell by about a third."

See Simple Checklist Makes Surgery Safer, Eric Nagourney, New York Times (January 14, 2009).

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on January 15, 2009 (boomark / email).