How do we square this circle? Discovery patents? Sure. Consulting services for hospitals and programs in Doha and Ghana? Why not. But what about a paediatric hospital's reason for being - how do we save money by doing even better at helping more kids?
Let's borrow a familiar foreign bank's refrain and invest in ... a culture of transparent patient safety and family partnership that saves millions with fewer days in hospital, fewer proceedures and less litigation.
"You work hard. You havent taken chances. You've done everything right. And still you feel the pinch. Not sure what to do? Stick to the fundamentals. Grow your ... FAMILY-CENTERED CARE."
"Saving money is like the weather. Everyone talks about it. But you should save for a rainy day. But how? Invest it. Put it into ... PATIENT SAFETY PROGRAMS."
Saving lives is no laughing matter. Reductions in infections, wrong site surgery and a host of other factors have saved lives and reduced time in hospital. There is increasingly evidence that confronting mistakes reduces litigation and future mishaps. How can we get even more creative and do more?
Jonathan, Jim Conway from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement cites Building the Business Case for Patient Centered Care by Charmel and Frampton, HFM (Healthcare Financial Management), March 2008: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19097611 as the best cource of information about the financial "sense" of patient-centred--and by implication family-centred--care.
ReplyDeleteThanks Frank, would like to read that. The next day I came across the OHA's Bending the Health Care Cost Curve http://www.oha.com/News/MediaCentre/Documents/Bending%20the%20Health%20Care%20Cost%20Curve%20%28Final%20Report%20-%20April%2013%202010%29.pdf which discusses error along with home care, wound care etc and tonight started on the 2009 Patient Safety Institute report http://www.patientsafetyinstitute.ca/English/research/commissionedResearch/EconomicsofPatientSafety/Documents/Economics%20of%20Patient%20Safety%20Literature%20Review.pdf
ReplyDeleteThanks Frank, would like to read that. The next day I came across the OHA's Bending the Health Care Cost Curve looking among other things at home care, wound care, palliative care and error reduction and the 2009 Patient Safety Institute reportOne Dollar in Seven: Scoping the Economics of Patient Safety. Not that economics are a primary motivator for error reduction nor that next steps are uncontentious.
ReplyDelete