Monday, August 08, 2005
Where's the Safety? Where's the Quality?
A little blurb on President Bush's signing of the new Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (as reported in OutPatient Surgery eWeekly), included these highlights. In addition to creating a "national medical-error database," the bill:
*makes error reporting by healthcare facilities voluntary, not mandatory
*allows data that's reported to the public to NOT identify specific patients, the health care providers who made the error or the people who reported the error.
*says that data cannot be used against health-care providers for lawsuits or by regulatory/accreditation bodies.
Whew! I feel safer, don't you? In this era of transparency and so-called heightened scrutiny, here's a law that allows hospitals, doctors and providers that make mistakes to hide behind them, admit only the facts and not face up to the responsibility and consequences of those errors. A "yet-to-be-named federal patient safety body" will set practice and policy recommendations.
Every child left behind...and every patient, too?
Do YOU feel safer knowing this?
Neither do I...
*makes error reporting by healthcare facilities voluntary, not mandatory
*allows data that's reported to the public to NOT identify specific patients, the health care providers who made the error or the people who reported the error.
*says that data cannot be used against health-care providers for lawsuits or by regulatory/accreditation bodies.
Whew! I feel safer, don't you? In this era of transparency and so-called heightened scrutiny, here's a law that allows hospitals, doctors and providers that make mistakes to hide behind them, admit only the facts and not face up to the responsibility and consequences of those errors. A "yet-to-be-named federal patient safety body" will set practice and policy recommendations.
Every child left behind...and every patient, too?
Do YOU feel safer knowing this?
Neither do I...
# posted by Richard "Surgery Sucks" Rossiter @ 8:51 PM 
