QUESTION
How does New York City Health and Hospitals (H+H) ensure quality assurance to minimize medical malpractice or negligence?
2:04:14
·
120 sec
Mitch Katz explains that New York City Health and Hospitals (H+H) employs a robust quality assurance plan to minimize medical malpractice or negligence.
- The plan includes involvement from the board and quality improvements across the system.
- Each hospital and clinic has a quality improvement director.
- Special initiatives such as 'time out' in the surgical field and modern electronic health systems help prevent medication interactions.
- These measures strive to provide the right care every time and use policies and procedures to try to lower the occurrence of adverse events.
Mercedes Narcisse
2:04:14
What form of quality assurance does HNH have to lower potential cases of medical malpractice or negligent?
Mitch Katz
2:04:24
We have a very robust plan that includes our board, the quality improvements for cases that are seen throughout the system, each hospital and clinic as a quality improvement director.
2:04:39
You know, as long as health care is done by humans or maybe even if it's not done by humans, there will always be, you know, things that don't go the way you want them to go.
2:04:51
Nobody's perfect, but we strive to, you know, to provide the right care every time, and there have been, you know, some major initiatives, including time out in the surgical field, which, you know, didn't exist when you and I were in training, but now, you know, they would never do surgery without a time out to ask everybody, the nurses and the doctors.
2:05:16
Do we know what surgery we're doing?
2:05:18
Do we know which side we're doing it on Does anyone have any questions about what we're doing?
2:05:24
Right.
2:05:25
The the modern electronic health systems Every time, you know, I prescribe medication, if that medication has an interaction with another medication that the patient is taking, I immediately see it on the screen.
2:05:40
They say, do you, you know, recognize that drug a is associated with an interaction action and drug.
2:05:47
B.
2:05:48
Right?
2:05:48
So you remember, in New York, there was the famous Libby Zion case of a young woman who died at a private hospital at all due to a medicine interaction.
2:05:59
Well, in modern times, you would prescribe a medicine and you would immediately see that interaction.
2:06:05
So I I think that the right policies and procedures are in place to try to drive that number as low as possible.