The Betsy Lehman Center, a state agency that supports providers, patients and policymakers on patient safety issues, today published its latest report on opportunities for quality improvement in healthcare settings.
The report seeks to analyze the financial and human cost of medical errors in Massachusetts settings that provide services covered by health insurance. Its findings include that medical errors persist despite considerable progress – particularly by hospitals – on improving patient safety at the state and national level. It also finds patient dissatisfaction with the level and frequency of communication by caregivers when medical mistakes occur; and also that open communication is linked to lower levels of adverse emotional impacts for patients.
“This new report from the Betsy Lehman Center both acknowledges the advances Massachusetts hospitals have made in terms of patient safety in recent years and helps illustrate how care provided in hospitals and other healthcare settings must improve,” said Steve Walsh, president and CEO of MHA. “Our hospitals are working hard every day to bolster their harm prevention efforts and enhance patient safety. This report will serve as an important component of the hospital community’s roadmap to continued advancement.”
“Healthcare is a human-based complex technical system endeavor, and therefore it’s very difficult to completely eliminate errors, but I think we have to be driving toward zero errors and zero harms,” said Kim Hollon, president & CEO of Signature Healthcare, a member of MHA’s Board of Trustees and Chair of MHA’s Clinical Issues Advisory Council. “Often, errors are related to the process, not the care itself. Patients appreciate when we explain to them what happened and how we can improve the process.”
MHA is attending today’s Lehman Center public event where the report will be released.