The conference is being held later this year, and April certainly can bear a little bit better weather for Chicago than February. “Keep your
schedule on track for HIMSS09 in Chicago from April 4-8, 2009. The 2009 Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition comes just 5 weeks later than last year's conference, held in Orlando, Fla. at the end of February”. Key note speakers this year include Dennis Quaid, which everyone remembers his incident at Cedars Sinai with the overdose issues of heparin earlier this year and now he has become a safety advocate and is in the line up for this year. The foundation site is located here.
The site also has a place where readers can contribute their stories as well. Nice to see celebrity action involved here as medical errors can affect everyone and occur more frequently sometimes than what you may believe. You absolutely need to be the “informed patient” today and learn as much as you can. Technology is flowing in to health care at such a rapid rate with changes and new devices, etc. that it is becoming complicated and difficult for the good people we trust our health to, to keep up. Ignorance is no longer bliss and what you don’t know can kill you. Get a personal health account online set up and start saving those records and documents as you may need them someday, sad to say but today it is a “buyer beware” environment in healthcare so read and do the best you can to be the “informed patient” or the “informed family” BD
From the foundation website:
Our mission is to raise the standard of patient medical care by:
- Breaking the “conspiracy of silence” by raising public awareness of our broken medical system, so that the medical industry is compelled to become more publically accountable to society at large. Our model will be similar to that of the airline industry.
- Eliminating HUMAN ERROR
Our goal is to serve as watchdog advocate and facilitator in the development and implementation of systems, technology, and safeguards that maximize patient safely while minimizing the impact of HUMAN ERROR in patient medical treatment. We also strive to make the public aware of which medical facilities are vigilant about operating at the highest standard, so that patients may make a more informed decision as to where to receive their medical care.
- Patient’s Rights
Patients have the right to know any information that could have an impact on their health and well-being so that they may access their own risks and make a more informed decision in regards to their choice of hospitals, doctors, and other medical professionals by:
- Timely access to their own medical records, with the assurance that these records are in full, accurately kept as per protocol, unabridged, or altered in any way.
- Access to the “track records”, if you will, of the health care professionals taking care of them pertaining to any past cases of malpractice or reprimands from any state health board.
- Access to an evenly balanced justice system when they or one of their loved ones is the victim of egregious medical error.
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