Indianapolis residents might remember when three infants died at the Newborn Intensive Care Unit of Methodist Hospital because they were given adult doses of the blood-thinner Heparin. It was an emotional story that grabbed headlines – but was it a rare occurrence? Unfortunately, such mistakes are more common than Americans might realize.

Nearly 100,000 people die every year in hospitals and doctors’ offices due to medical mistakes. It’s a huge number: put in perspective that’s the equivalent of one fully loaded 747s crashing every single day for 52 weeks.  In Indiana alone,94 serious medical errors were reported during 2009. Yet the frequency of these errors hasn’t motivated enough hospitals and other health care facilities to take action.

The serious need for widespread safety training, teamwork, and standard procedures will be the subject of a presentation by Capt. Steven Harden, CEO of LifeWings, an organization that has adapted the best practices of high-reliability organizations – such as commercial aviation, U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, and nuclear power – to help more than 100 healthcare organizations make safety a priority.

Harden’s presentation, “Patient Safety Lessons Learned from U.S. Airways Flight 1549” at 2010 Indiana Hospital Association’s Annual Meeting on Monday, October 25 (9:00-10:00 am at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Indianapolis) will reveal just how the healthcare industry can take lessons from commercial aviation – and why they need to do it now.

With the advent of healthcare reform, the need might be even more urgent. The government has emphasized hospitals’ need to comply with evidence-based protocols and earn high patient satisfaction ratings. Beginning in 2014, Medicare will cut reimbursements by 1% to hospitals with the most errors. And with revenues (margins) averaging 3%, it’s a cut hospitals say they can’t afford. Prior to the reform act being passed, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service announced it would no longer reimburse for preventable complications, including pressure ulcers and wrong-type blood transfusions.

Harden maintains making hospitals and other healthcare facilities safer is an easy fix. But it has to be a cultural change – one that everyone buys into. “There needs to be a team approach to healthcare,” notes Harden. “It can’t be viewed as individual delivery.” In other words, if a physician makes an error or misses a necessary safety step, nurses and others need to speak up. In a culture that has dealt with what Harden calls “unjustified autonomy,” – arrogance brought on by a hugely hierarchical workplace – most people haven’t spoken up. In some cases, physicians have continued to do things the way they’re used to, even when evidence-based medicine dictates otherwise.

 “We’re not here to tell clients how to practice medicine,” Harden adds. “We do have medical expertise, but our clients are the experts. Our goal is to turn a group of experts into an expert team.”

 About Life Wings
Harden, the author of Never Go to the Hospital Alone and co-author of CRM: The Flight Plan for Lasting Change in Patient Safety, has been involved in human factors and safety training for a wide variety of military and commercial customers for 19 years, producing over 40 separate training programs for commercial aviation, military flight squadrons, heavy construction, military contractors, and healthcare. Since 1995, he has focused solely on the healthcare industry. LifeWings has implemented CRM (Crew Resource Management) systems for more than 100 healthcare organizations, including hospitals, clinics, physician officers, insurance, and risk management organizations. For more information about LifeWings, which is headquartered in Memphis, visit www.saferpatients.com . Steven Harden’s blog is available at www.saferpatients.com/blog.

Editors/Reporters – For more information or to interview Steven Harden, please contact media liaison Robb Leer at 612.701.0608 or robbl@leercommunication.com.