After nearly loosing his twins to an overdose of the blood thinner heparin given at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in 2007, actor Dennis Quaid has been heavily involved in raising awareness about medical errors in collaboration with TMIT and the National Quality Forum.

Medical errors have historically been dealt with through lawsuits and hostile litigious means, despite the fact that most errors are the result of system-wide deficits rather than the shortcomings of individual healthcare providers.  In a recent Newsweek interview, Quaid says that “he doesn’t blame individual doctors, he blames a health-care system that is ill equipped to prevent mistakes.”

Quaid and his wife considered filing a lawsuit against Cedar-Sinai but opted for the more sensible option of working with the hospital to improve its safety measures:

I really don’t know [what happened to the nurse that administered the overdose]. We didn’t meet with her afterwards. There were several nurses involved. I don’t blame any of the nurses. They’re overworked, underappreciated. The reason they get into health care to begin with is they’re there to ease human suffering and they really do care. They’re great people; they’re heroes in our lives. But human error occurs. If I make a mistake in my business, I get a take two. They don’t. And when a mistake occurs, they need help as much as the victims as well, because they’re traumatized by it.

Promoting a culture of safety and reducing medical errors requires selfless leadership, institution of safe-practices such as checklists, and proper use of well-designed technologies. There is currently a lot of room for improvement in all of these domains.

Filed under: Culture, Health Policy