Piloting the way to patient safety

While some might say that delivering health care is so much more complex than flying planes, there are things that health care providers can learn from the airline industry. It seems a growing number of hospital administrators are bringing in aviation experts so that their medical staff members and employees can learn about prevention strategies. From the New York Times article "What Pilots Can Teach Hospitals About Patient Safety":

"'We’re where the airline industry was 30 years ago' when a series of fatal mistakes increased scrutiny and provoked change, said Dr. Stephen B. Smith, chief medical officer at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, the teaching hospital for the University of Nebraska.

It is well established that, like airplane crashes, the majority of adverse events in health care are the result of human error, particularly failures in communication, leadership and decision-making.

'The culture in the operating room has always been the surgeon as the captain at the controls with a crew of anesthesiologists, nurses and techs hinting at problems and hoping they will be addressed,' Dr. Smith said. 'We need to change the culture so communication is more organized, regimented and collaborative, like what you find now in the cockpit of an airplane.'"