I had the opportunity to tell Anthony John Masters story on Ed’s show a while back. Ed has been a genuine source of help and friendship during Anthony’s stay at a teaching affiliate of a world class school of medicine in New York.
After spending two and a half days in Washington, D.C., for World Patient Safety Day (September 17th, 2024) hosted by Patients for Patient Safety, US, an affiliate of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The experience was both healing and hopeful. Connecting with others who’ve had the common experience of losing a son, daughter, or child to medical error is a ‘club’ no-one wants to be associated with. But there’s strength in numbers. The opportunity to tell the story of loss is part of the healing journey and the need to raise awareness of this de-facto public health epidemic (deaths associated with medical error, including diagnostic error(s) and care management gaps if not negligence is the 3rd leading cause of disease in the U.S. Ranging from +/- 100,000 (IOM) to 800,00 attributed deaths, we’re talking about a loss of life equivalent to multiple jumbo jets crashing every day!
Yet, for many reasons including the over-engineered subspecialty complexity of our healthcare delivery systems or networks beholden to the incentives of a production-based fee-for-services financing models, and commitment to team-based care (ripe with opportunities for the ‘bystander effect’) we face quite the challenge. As noted by the author of Fragmented Medicine: the [NMP] problem is real, further adding;
There are no bad actors here, only victims.’
I couldn’t agree more. There is much work to be done. Preventing or minimally reducing harm and avoidable deaths must be the prime directive of health industry leadership writ large across the entire stakeholder ecosystem, not just hospitals, health systems, physicians or their parent organizations.
If you want to lend your voice or tell your story, please contact me. Follow on Twitter via @GreggMastersMPH, then DM me. We can discuss your situation and decide if telling your story makes sense.
We can do this! Let’s #EndNMP together!
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