Why Hospitals Should Fly [Guest Review]

"Why Hospitals Should Fly" by John Nance

I received a guest book review by Bradley Truax, MD. Dr Truax is a Healthcare Consultant. You can contact him through his website at http://www.patientsafetysolutions.com/.

Here are some excerpts from the book review that is posted to their website:

["Since the late 1980's we have used the aviation industry as a model for patient safety and many valuable lessons learned from aviation tragedies that can be applied to healthcare. Everyone involved in patient safety realizes the rapidly growing numbers of effective measures that have been demonstrated to minimize errors and improve outcomes. But we have all been disappointed at our overall inability to significantly reduce the number of patients being harmed annually in whom adverse outcomes were potentially avoidable.

John Nance's new book "Why Hospitals Should Fly" really hit the target. While Nance masterfully weaves many best practices from IHI, NQF, AHRQ, Joint Commission, ISMP and others into his fictional "St. Michael's," his theme is that we have failed because we have failed to convert to a culture of safety. That basic theme is that "culture kills strategy every time."]

["Nance then demonstrates through the eyes of a physician visitor to St Michael's all the lessons learned from aviation that were applied to healthcare and changed the culture to one of "total, egoless support of the common goal (taking safe, effective care of our patients)" in a system in which the whole team acknowledges that errors will occur and the team will catch each other's mistakes before harm comes to patients. It is a high reliability organization and a learning organization in which all members take pride in learning from their mistakes as much as celebrating their successes. It is a culture in which teams are empowered and encouraged to do a root cause analysis on the spot and make changes to the system immediately (ala Toyota/lean thinking concepts)."]

["So do we think Nance's "St. Michael's" is achievable? Can it be done overnight? Do we have to wait for a new generation of healthcare workers? The question should not be "can it be done?" We simply must do it."]

For a look at the complete book review, log on to Dr Truax's website: http://www.patientsafetysolutions.com/.