PROFESSIONError-proofing your office: Rules and protocols to help reduce riskPatient safety experts tell primary care physicians to simplify, systematize and, for goodness sake, wash your hands.By Andis Robeznieks, amednews staff. Jan. 12, 2004. Everyone is familiar with the sight of politicians in their "power suits" and hard hats touring a construction zone. No one expects these officials to start riveting steel girders together, but safety rules dictate that everyone in the area must wear hard hats, so they do -- even politicians who just had their hair coiffed for the television cameras. Physicians, nurses and patients don't have to worry about tools or heavy objects falling on them from above, but many experts believe everyone would be safer if uniform no-exception safety rules also were instituted at doctors' offices. "Patient safety crosses the spectrum from people falling when they get off an exam table, to prescribing errors, to things as basic as hand washing," said Daniel Stryer, MD, director of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Center for Quality Improvement and Safety. "Some of this is not rocket science; in some ways, it's harder." Ever since the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report "To Err is Human" was released, patient safety has become a frequently discussed aspect of health care. Nevertheless, with its focus on hospital-centered topics such as wrong-site surgeries and nurse-staffing ratios, some primary care physicians easily tune out the subject. This is changing, however, and even hospital-focused organizations such as the Leapfrog Group are starting to get involved with improving safety in the doctors' office. Research is being done and theories are being put forth, but -- according to Nancy C. Elder, MD, an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine -- these theories have yet to be put to the test. [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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