Dennis Quaid Produces Documentary About Patient Safety - Chasing Zero: Winning the War on Healthcare Harm

We like talking patient safety around the Medical Quack by all means and throw in some potential solutions when idea pop into my head. It is technology that is creating a lot of this with distraction or disruption as well. Clinicians are overloaded too with information and they can’t rely too well on what’s in their heads for all the information any more. I learned that a long time ago as a sales person and was an early adapter of PDAs and Windows Mobile Devices, it made me better at what I did and I had my information with me and available. Mr. Quaid returned to the hospital and followed up as featured on Oprah.

Dennis Quaid Returns to Hospital – Discussion on Oprah March 10, 2009

Some hospitals are working hard on safety and innovation issues. Below you can read my interview with Chris McCarthy at the Kaiser Permanente Innovation department at the Garfield Center in northern California. They are working not only on innovation, but also anticipating areas in patient care where errors could occur.

Innovation and Learning at Kaiser Permanente – Interview With Chris McCarthy

In this article here it mentions how “hand washing” is discussed. There’s a technology solution for that, read more at the link below:

Real Time Monitoring of When you Washed your Hands – Don’t Touch that Patient Until You Have Washed Your Hands

It also talks about bar coding in the hospital which is great, but we need to go a bit further than that today as people are getting implanted with devices that have been recalled…..and they die. This needs Tags and there’s a ton of posts I have made on this blog and I started out doing this last October. I write emails to the FDA and some of the drug and medical device companies when I can and have time. There’s no interest other than just trying to crack open a “dead” head somewhere and get some attention here to invest in some technology that will result in saving lives where medical errors would be at fault.

I have my own sample tags on this page, get the free software and try them out. Think of your phone scanning a device or drug to see if it has been recalled.

Microsoft Tags on CBS Early Show – Wake Up FDA, Pharma and Medical Device Companies –Scan Those Drugs, Medical Devices and Synchronize with an FDA Tag Data Base – Recalls, Theft Tracking and More….

There seems to be some resistance here in responding, but that’s ok, I’ll keep at it as tech and science denial is big. If you go at it long enough someone will pay attention. Watch the video and pretend there’s a box with a stent in it that has been recalled, would it not be nice to see that appear on the screen instantly???

Scan that knee, hip, defibrillator before you use it, takes a few seconds and will help hospital registries function and less mistakes. Recalls are growing and we need to handle this better, is more information that needs a simple and easy workflow, like the Tags.

We all talk about aviation and compare to medical and yes that is important as a friend of mine years ago had to react quickly as their 747 almost crashed over downtown Hong Kong with a left wing flap failure, it wants to roll when things like that happen, so that is really being on the ball and I have had a little time to play around a bit in a FedEx simulator years ago too, so I got a taste of what he did. Speaking of our heroes though too, it was sad to hear that Scully, who landed the jet in New York had his retirement cut by 40% too, what are we doing for our heroes anyway sometimes, kind of sad. BD

I’m glad we have someone like Dennis Quaid on the case to keep it front of everyone, that’s what it takes to get people to get off their duffs and pay attention. BD

WASHINGTON — As a private pilot, actor Dennis Quaid was struck by the differences between how aviation errors and medical errors are handled.

The airline industry doesn't have much choice, Quaid noted in an interview Monday after speaking at a National Press Club luncheon. "When a crash happens, it's so public," he said. "No one is going to fly on their airplanes unless they have that trust."

But when a mistake occurs in a hospital, the public might never hear about it. Although an estimated 100,000 Americans die each year because of medical errors, their deaths are scattered over thousands of hospitals, "where people die anyway," Quaid said. "It doesn't get the same type of attention."

He has produced a documentary, Chasing Zero: Winning the War on Healthcare Harm, which makes its debut April 22 at the Global Patient Safety Summit in Nice, France, where Quaid will be the keynote speaker. It airs April 24, May 1 and May 8 on the Discovery Channel. Quaid also co-wrote an article in the March issue of the Journal of Patient Safety, "Story Power: The Secret Weapon."

Dennis Quaid takes aim at health care mistakes - USATODAY.com