In This Issue: Practice Change and Patient Safety

Kurt C. Stange

doi:10.1370/afm.218

Published eLetters

If you would like to comment on this article, click on Submit a Response to This article, below. We welcome your input.

Submit a Response to This Article

Compose eLetter

Title *

Author Information

Contributors
First Name and Middle Initial * First or given name, e.g. 'Peter'. Last Name * Your last, or family, name, e.g. 'MacMoody'. Email Address * Your email address, e.g. higgs-boson@gmail.com Occupation * Your role and/or occupation, e.g. 'Orthopedic Surgeon'. Affiliation * Your organization or institution (if applicable), e.g. 'Royal Free Hospital'.

Statement of Competing Interests

Competing interests? *

Yes

Please describe the competing interests

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

What code is in the image? *

Enter the characters shown in the image.

Vertical Tabs

Jump to comment:

Patient Safety Through Modernization and Redesign
Joseph E Scherger

Published on: 02 August 2004

Published on: (2 August 2004)
Page navigation anchor for Patient Safety Through Modernization and Redesign
Patient Safety Through Modernization and Redesign
Joseph E Scherger, San Diego, CA USA
As a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on the Quality of Health Care in America (To Err is Human and Crossing the Quality Chasm), I read the editorials and articles on patient safety with great interest. I agree that this issue of Annals of Family Medicine adds an important new dimension to the discussion on patient safety. "System solutions" sound sterile when it comes to the clinician-patient relationship....
Show More

As a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on the Quality of Health Care in America (To Err is Human and Crossing the Quality Chasm), I read the editorials and articles on patient safety with great interest. I agree that this issue of Annals of Family Medicine adds an important new dimension to the discussion on patient safety. "System solutions" sound sterile when it comes to the clinician-patient relationship. Excellent communication, reflection and self-awareness are able to take the quality of care to high levels. The practice of medicine is fundamentally a human transaction more than the performance of an industrial system.
I would hate to see the discourse on patient safety take an either or quality, with the sides getting polarized, competing for priority attention. What I find missing here is the clear recognition that we are currently using archaic tools and methods to deliver care. Rather than nebulous "system solutions", the discussion should be on how quality and safety can be improved when all the patient data is readily available, when clinicians will have knowledge management tools imbedded in the workflow with patients for clinical decision support, and when communication among clinicians and with patients can be done anytime rapidly. We are on the verge of modernizing how we work, and these new tools offer great promise in making care safer and more effective. Of course, the relationship is primary, and we treat people not diseases. I look forward to studies of relationship centered care placed in the context of modern care tools and methods.
Competing interests: None declared
Show Less

Competing Interests: None declared.