Hospital Safety, Dirty Doctors, and Accountability

My friend Helen Haskell forwarded two articles of big interest to those of us who wish hospitals were safer places to be sick or hurt.

Putting Staff in Charge of Safety

The first is the cover story from Hospitals and Health Network Magazine called “Can Your Nurses Stop a Surgeon?” It tells the tale of a surgeon at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center who, ready to operate on his patient, was told by the nurses and surgical technician that he was not allowed to move forward because he had not yet let them run through their pre-surgical safety check, called a “Time Out.”

The surgeon, furious, reached for the scalpel anyway — and found it had been removed from the instrument tray by the staff. Even more furious he stomped out of the OR and contacted the CEO of the hospital –

…..find the rest of this post at the new blog location