Medical Society on reducing medical errors: No Position
Governor Blagojevich got mixed reactions today to a proposal aimed at reducing medical errors in Illinois that would focus mainly on reducing prescription drug mix-ups, such as providing the wrong drug or preventable drug interactions. An estimated 4,000 Illinoisians are killed each year by preventable medical errors and tens of thousands more are injured. Public health experts believe the new electonic prescription drug system will reduce those errors by 80%.
The Illinois Trial Lawyers Association is applauding the proposal:
Judy Cates, president of Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, said the group welcomes anything that might prevent incidents that end up in court battles.State Rep. John Fritchey reminds us that this does not restore the legal rights that Blagojevich stripped away from victims:
"While laudable, nothing in this mitigates the rights that we're taking away in the malpractice legislation," said Rep. John Fritchey, a Chicago Democrat who called the plan "somewhat bittersweet."And the Illinois State Medical Society, which has stood by as Democrats and Republicans have worked together at the federal level (Newt Gingrich and Hillary Clinton) and state level (Beth Coulson and Julie Hamos) still can't admit that doctors make mistakes:
The Illinois State Medical Society, which represents thousands of doctors, said in a statement it has had no conversations with Blagojevich about his plan and was unfamiliar with its specifics.Unfortunately for Blagojevich, this long overdue step forward was buried under today's corruption story. In fact, the medical error proposal was the reason Blagojevich was in Evanston, but he ended up fielding corruption questions instead.
My only question for Blagojevich: If this is a lifesaving program, why make it voluntary?
5 comments:
My first question is did the folks who make the bar code scanners needed to implement a lot of this at hosptials donate to Blagojevich's campaign?
"An estimated 4,000 Illinoisians are killed each year by preventable medical errors and tens of thousands more are injured..."
One question - estimated by WHOM?
DBR, those are standard statistics among the medical community. Look up the number of unnecessary deaths online if you disagree with the startling facts. (Happens a lot more often than you or I would like to think it does.)
The better question is, when is the governor and legislature going to do something about the very few doctors who commit the vast majority of malpractice in this state? Those are truly a few bad apples who cause insurance rates to climb for all doctors.
We take away driver's licences from the relatively few bad drivers out there -- why not bad doctors' licences?
As a conservative that looks askance at big spending liberals, I gotta say that this is one of the things I actually like about this Governor.
As much of a Hack as he is, he skirts around some really good ideas and eventually actually does something about actual problems.
Fixing medical errors is a BIG DEAL, and is a large cost driver in health care. It goes way beyond drug mix-ups too. NW is right on the money about telling the public about the worst doctors.
It wouldn't hurt to tell the public which hospitals did which things the best.
Why are doctors and public schools the only people who get protection from the light of day?
Could it have something to do with who purchases legislators and legislation?
Hmmmmm?
dbr - If you don't like the estimate that nearly 4,000 Illinoisians are killed by preventable medical errors each year, blame Harvard Medical School. It was their study.
Post a Comment