tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659175401245095431.post7075201617706270278..comments2023-04-12T07:25:34.641-04:00Comments on IHI Open School: Not Just Great Ideas: The Surgical Safety Checklist and the ICU WalkerEva Luohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03422162956290956079noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659175401245095431.post-60061655735155303662009-02-18T17:37:00.000-05:002009-02-18T17:37:00.000-05:00Here's a link to the Data Collection Form Andy Car...Here's a link to the Data Collection Form Andy Carson-Stevens has created for the IHI Open School wide Surgical Safety Checklist initiative: http://surgicalsociety.net/FormEva Luohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03422162956290956079noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659175401245095431.post-89292787628418607472009-02-04T11:30:00.000-05:002009-02-04T11:30:00.000-05:00The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is sponsoring a...The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is sponsoring a contest to come up with ideas for improvements in choice architecture, or "nudges", that can improve health, broadly defined. Got an idea for the next medical checklist? The next smart pillbox? Submit your idea via the website. 3 winners will receive $5000 each to put their nudge into practice. Click <A HREF="http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/designingforbetterhealth" REL="nofollow">here</A> for more information!Eva Luohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03422162956290956079noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659175401245095431.post-56855777218412191612009-01-17T00:36:00.000-05:002009-01-17T00:36:00.000-05:00Today, I had an opportunity to sit in on an Orthop...Today, I had an opportunity to sit in on an Orthopedic Surgery Grand Rounds at Yale School of Medicine. Our guest speaker was professor Tian Wei, a leading spine surgeon in China and chairman of the Ji Shui Tin Hospital (JST) in Beijing.<BR/><BR/>His presentation was divided into three parts. First, he talked about the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake in southern China and his institution's involvement with the rescue efforts. Secondly, he introduced JST Hospital, a modern 6,000+ bed teaching hospital in Beijing, which would dwarf any teaching hospital here in the U.S. by size.<BR/><BR/>The third part of his lecture resonated with me the most: a cataloging of the state-of-the-art techniques and equipment available at JST for orthopedic procedures (pedical screws, computer-assisted drilling, intro-operative 3D imagine, etc). Despite knowing nothing about what the state-of-the-art technologies are for orthopedic surgery, I couldn't help but feel as if Professor Tian was trying to impress the attendees and residents in the room with how advanced his institution is, while he knew full well that the technologies available to his audience here were just as advanced, if not more so. To reinforce that impression, every couple of slides on his powerpoint would show a very glamorous picture of some aspect of China (definitely not medically-related!), whether it is natural scenery of China, or the fireworks from the Bird's Nest during the Olympics, on track with mission: impress. And the whole time I remember thinking to myself, "What can we possibly learn about clinic practices and improvement from this presentation?"<BR/><BR/>This question was in fact already answered by Professor Tian's presentation, but I was just too dense to see it. Only when Dr. Yue, a Yale faculty surgeon who introduced Prof. Tian, closed the presentation, did I realize that we can, in fact, learn something important about patient care, safety, error-reduction, and best practices from Prof. Tian's institution. And that something was this: JST Hospital, as is the case with many hospitals in China, serves a patient population many magnitudes in size higher than what we deal with in the U.S. In 2008 alone, JST Hospital performed over 33,000 orthopedic procedures; for comparison, I overheard from a neighboring faculty that it would take Yale New-Haven Hospital over 10 years to achieve this landmark. And yet, the post-op infection rate was LOWER in JST than that of the U.S. <BR/><BR/>Dr. Yue remarked that when he visited JST last year, he was shocked by how sterile everything was. You were literally stripped down, he said, when you entered the surgery wing. Whereas surgeons here would simply put booties over their shoes, surgeons at JST would get new shoes that were completely sterilized. After scrubbing in, surgeons at JST cannot leave the OR, let alone reenter. These measures, along with many others, are why a hospital with a patient volume of 33,000 per year has fewer cases of infection than teaching hospitals in the U.S. with one-tenth as many cases.<BR/><BR/>What Dr. Yue observed—two environments of orthopedic surgery on two different continents, and the statistical difference in a patient safety marker between the two—can powerfully translate into clinical improvement for us. Despite the U.S.’s apparently superior health care industry, we can still learn how to improve by observing other countries, even developing countries such as China. And this is precisely where clinicians, especially young physicians and medical students, can contribute valuably, by being medical ambassadors who spread best practices abroad and who can bring foreign best practices back into the U.S.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com