There was an interesting report on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer last
night regarding efforts of the VA hospital in Washington DC to reduce
medical errors. Among the approaches discussed are taking a systems
approach similar to that taken by the aviation industry and NASA. For
example, doctors go through a pre-operation checklist similar to the
pre-flight checklist completed by pilots (in fact, the person leading
this effort is an ex-astronaut). There is also some information on the
role that converting to electronic records keeping has played in
reducing errors. For example, doctors can utilize drop down menus to
prescribe drugs and dosages, eliminating the errors generated by bad
handwriting. A Real Audio version of the report can be found at:
 
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html#monday
 
Dwight Wallis, CRM
Records & Distribution Services Manager
Multnomah County Fleet, Records, Electronics, Distribution & Stores
(FREDS)
1620 SE 190th Avenue
Portland OR 97233
phone: (503)988-3741
fax: (503)988-3754
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