Pressing for better quality across healthcare - LA Times

[cbayer]

As steward of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, Donald Berwick is leading a charge to cut errors and increase efficiency. But time for such measures may be running out.


http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-health-innovation-20111005,0,7115859.story




By Noam N. Levey, Washington Bureau
October 4, 2011, 9:47 p.m.
Reporting from Atlanta— The cardiac intensive care unit at Egleston Children's Hospital in Atlanta gleams and hums with a dazzling array of scientific wonders that breathe for tiny lungs and monitor every beat of an infant heart.

But on a recent visit, Dr. Donald Berwick was especially pleased by something decidedly low-tech: a quiet zone where nurses can place medication orders without being interrupted, even during emergencies.

Hospital leaders created the zone — little more than a computer terminal in a corner of the room behind an orange sign on the floor that reads "Shh … We're in the MedZone" — two years ago after noticing that distracted staff members were making dangerous mistakes when ordering medicine.

much more at link

[cbayer]

1. Kicking - This is a good article about Don Berwick, who is going to lose

his job if we don't do something.

He was an interim appointment and the republicans would LOVE to get rid of him.

We need to push Congress to schedule confirmation hearings ASAP and keep this hero in place.

If we lose him, we will lose the ground he has covered towards reforming Medicare into what can be our single payer, universal provider.


Or, we could just ignore the whole thing.

:banghead:

[Mimosa]

2. K&R Excellent article. n/t