Improving Patient Safety

Click the arrow to play audio file:

click here if you cannot view audio player: PP-778.mp3

Ten years ago, the Institute of Medicine shocked the medical establishment when it published To Err Is Human. The experts of the IOM estimated that nearly 100,000 Americans died of medical errors in hospitals every year. More studies of the problem have revealed that this may be only the tip of the iceberg.

Efforts to improve patient safety have had some effect. One doctor developed a checklist to reduce the risk of certain hospital-acquired infections. Find out about how he came up with the checklist and how his campaign to make hospitals safer is being waged.

Guest: Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, is a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He directs the Quality and Safety Research Group and serves as medical director for the Center for Innovation in Quality Care. Dr. Pronovost was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in 2008 and was the recipient of a MacArthur genius grant in 2009. Together with Eric Vohr, he has written Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals: How One Doctor's Checklist Can Help Change Healthcare from the Inside Out. He is also the author of a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.