Two of the biggest causes today for medical errors are lack of information and distraction, yes distraction can very well do it. As we are all so much 
busier today with tough economic times and the additional flow of information to handle, we need “good filters”, as earlier in another post I had declared the year 2009 as the “year of the filter”. Any of us can be distracted at any time and make a mistake, but healthcare is where we don’t want this to occur.
Actually in an earlier post, Kaiser has a low tech solution as they found the best solution was to have the nurses simply wear a yellow reflective strap around their chest that warns others to leave them alone when administering medications. That is a solution worth a look, but what happens when we all start wearing yellow ribbons so as not to be disturbed?
Tuesday, March 10th is the day to watch Oprah. The related reading links below have additional details on posts from the past on how the entire scenario evolved. Many forms of technology also come to the rescue to help us today as well, whether it’s a new system at the hospital pharmacy that helps check and monitor medications or an electronic medical records system that sends out alerts when prescribing. Just yesterday I posted on the latest technology update at Cedar Sinai.
One thing we can all do for ourselves and to help the doctors and nurses who take care of us, is to get an online Personal Health Record. When you go to see a doctor, he/she is looking for credible information and this is done easily and for free from Google Health and the Microsoft HealthVault. Let those doctors see what you are allergic too and what your health history is, they can make better decisions, and this is especially needed in the ER room. With the stimulus package, everything is in motion as far as funds to get the hospitals communicating. In an interview done recently, with Steve Shihadeh, VP of Microsoft Health Services, we discussed their Amalga software solution and the success it is seeing in connecting hospitals in Wisconsin, initially all the ER Rooms. If you have not seen the post, well worth a look to see what is going on.
Steve Shihadeh, VP Microsoft Health Solutions Group – The Amalga Software Solution for Aggregating Hospital Information (Interview)
I have an entire section devoted here to Personal Health Records and it is all in layman’s terms and links to get started. HealthVault has devices that connect so entering your glucose or blood pressure numbers require no typing, just a usb connection to your computer and in to the HealthVault it goes.
You can also visit the Quaid Foundation for additional information and view stories from others posted at the site. Nice we have some celebrities helping bring this issue to light as it can affect any of us anytime, anywhere, so be sure and catch the update on Oprah. BD
Dennis Quaid has made an emotional return to the Los Angeles hospital where his baby twins almost died after a blunder by medics.
The star and his wife Kimberley were awarded $750,000 in damages in December, after staff at L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center mistakenly gave their newborns Thomas and Zoe a near-fatal amount of blood thinning drug Heparin, leaving them fighting for their lives
SFGate: Daily Dish : Quaid Returns to Hospital for Oprah
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