It is now feasible to talk about completely eliminating adverse events for hospital patients, says one of the leading figures in the field of patient safety in a Health Affairs interview published Oct. 9.
“The most exciting thing that has happened recently in patient safety--something that has truly changed our agenda--is that it is now apparent that we can use perfection as a benchmark,” says Lucian Leape, an adjunct professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. Leape points to “convincing demonstrations” at places such as the Johns Hopkins intensive care unit that “we can actually eliminate certain adverse events,” such as central-line infections and ventilator-assisted pneumonia. “There is no reason to think that this cannot be expanded to the whole universe of adverse events,” he declares.
Leape points to several other important patient safety developments, including team training using simulations, better ways of identifying adverse events, a national effort to ensure physician competency, and acknowledgement of the need for disclosing mistakes.
However, the “single most disappointing aspect of the safety movement for me” has been “the difficulty in getting CEOs of hospitals and healthcare systems to make safety a priority,” Leape says. “CEOs are a ‘sea anchor’ on progress, and that has to change. . . . No organization can make the significant changes that are necessary to develop a culture of safety without vigorous leadership at the top.” Read the abstract.
