www.outcrybookreview.com           Press Report May 30, 2002

 Which Healthcare Institutions Should Receive the $520 Million for National Preparedness?

During a press interview, a question was presented to “Yinka Vidal, the author of 101 Ways to Prevent Medical Errors and one of the leading pioneers of the war on medical errors.

 Question:

“Since you have been working on medical errors for years even before the IOM report, how would you advise Congress about allocating funding to various health care institutions for national preparedness?” Mildred Gaddis, Radio Talk-show Host, Detroit, Michigan.

 Response:

Over the years, I have been a very strong advocate for hospitals and various health care institutions and clinics including research institutions, which I’m a product of, to receive adequate funding for services they provide to the communities across the country. I have also seen some of them struggling to make both ends meet while working hard to balance cost containment and quality improvement as the cost of providing care continues to go up. Post September 11, 2001 should create an opportunity to reevaluate funding for health care services across the nation, and to be sure these services are the best America can provide.

 Having said that, in making such a decision of allocating $520 million for enhancing hospital preparedness for nuclear, biological or chemical attack, to various health care institutions, many critical issues should be considered. Two of these key issues include; strategic location of the health care institution regarding  population, and a measure of systemic problems within the institution and the strategy of solution implementation.

 First, the strategic location of the hospital needs to be considered. Since the objective in a mass attack is to keep as many people alive. The larger the population, the more important is the location of the hospital to treat mass casualties. This does not mean those hospitals in low populated areas should be ignored.

 Second, a question should be asked whether a hospital system is designed to handle mass casualties based on corrective actions to fix systemic problems. For three years, I have been working and studying the implementation of solutions to correct medical errors. I have observed many positive responses from institutions that have waged a war against medical errors, and I have also observed less than adequate responses from some of them. Before we start allocating money to various institutions for national preparedness, we better be sure such institutions have identified their systemic problems, designed and implemented solutions and are able to show positive results over a period of time. Since many health care institutions have endemic systemic problems leading to medical errors based on the Institute of Medicine report, ignoring such issues may lead to tragic consequences. As a result, a lot of good money may inadvertently be pumped into an ill-equipped system with negative results. The allocation of money should be as an incentive to hospitals working to reduce medical errors.

 Back to Home Page