Three years ago, on February 22nd 2019, I was almost killed by a Mack truck that ran a red light and broadsided the driver’s side of my car. I still have injuries I’m being treated for, but it’s only by God’s grace, that I even survived the accident! In fact, tomorrow, which happens to be my daughter Emily’s birthday, I’m scheduled to have back surgery. So yesterday, as I was preparing for my upcoming hospital stay, and just before my board meeting for the Emily Jerry Foundation, I felt so grateful and blessed to receive this very kind email correspondence. God’s timing is always perfect! The mere fact that Emily’s legacy continues to live on in the hearts and minds of so many, truly means a lot to me!
—
Hello!
My name is Gracie. I am a care assistant at a Children’s Hospital in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. I just heard about Emily’s story from a module we were asked to watch for work. I know that a tough time of year is coming up for you and your family in this next week, so I wanted to reach out to tell you that her story is still being heard and impacting people around the world!
Thank you for sharing about your beautiful daughter. I know she is so proud of how her family is remembering her!
I will be praying for Emily, as well as you and your family this week!
From, Gracie
Over the past decade, I have had the great privilege of collaborating and learning from so many of the leading experts in the various modalities in healthcare. This is why I am really looking forward to the upcoming in-depth conversation I’ll be having with pharmacist Kevin Hope, from freeCE on Wednesday, January 26th. We will be discussing the important issue of preventable medication errors, like the one that took my two year old daughter Emily in 2006, and the valuable lessons learned. More importantly though, we will be focusing on the comprehensive solutions that help stop these types of tragedies before they happen. Please consider joining us if your able!
To learn more about the Emily Jerry Foundation, please visit:
https://lnkd.in/e5C-SEiC
If your considering making a tax-deductible donation to support our ongoing efforts to save lives from preventable medical error:
https://lnkd.in/e-63FRs8
On behalf of the Emily Jerry Foundation, I had the great privilege of being able to give a virtual presentation on preventable medical error at Becton Dickinson’s (BD) U.S. Regional Leadership Meeting last week. As I always do, I felt very grateful to have the opportunity to share many of the personal details surrounding my daughter Emily’s tragic passing. It’s important to me because her legacy, plus the simple fact that we ALL receive healthcare during our lifetime, helps people to truly relate and learn from the important lessons associated with the horrible medication error that took her life in 2006.
I also had a chance to convey a very important message. It was simply that BD’s systems & solutions, are not only improving and impacting the quality of care, for so many patients around the world, they are also helping to save countless lives from preventable medical error too. To that point, even though there are many, I used their Pyxis IV Prep System as a very clear example. It’s designed to help assist in eliminating the probability of “human error” from creeping into the sterile IV compounding process. With its integrated barcode verification, gravimetric technology, ability to immediately detect errors, etc., this IV workflow system, not only would have saved my beautiful daughter Emily’s life…going forward, upon implementation, it stands to save so many others as well. Bottom line, these types of IV workflow systems, are as important to overall medication safety, in the sterile IV compounding process, as seatbelts & airbags are to safety in cars!
I would like to genuinely thank Tracie Adams, BD‘s Vice President of Marketing, for inviting me to speak and providing this wonderful opportunity!
During these very trying times that we are all striving to emerge from, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Emily Jerry Foundation this holiday season. Your gift, no matter how big, or how small, will be greatly appreciated. It will help our foundation to be able to continue working on behalf of you and your family, constantly striving to improve medication safety and supporting our ongoing mission to make healthcare safer for everyone, ultimately saving lives from preventable medical error!
To make a tax-deductible donation today visit our donate page.
Receiving correspondence like this, over the past few weeks, is not only an immense blessing for me personally, it’s further confirmation that Emily’s legacy continues to live on in so many positive ways!! She’s certainly not being forgotten, and she’s changing countless lives in so many positive ways!!
Mr. Jerry,
I first met you many years ago when you traveled to Union Hospital in Dover, Ohio to share your tragic story. As a young caregiver, that had a profound impact on me in how I approached my patients. I promised myself that if God ever placed me in a position of leadership, I would share your story as we addressed policy and change in our journey to becoming a highly reliable organization. Since then, I’ve had that opportunity many times. Thank you! Blessings!
Chris B.
Hello,
My name is Audra Whitton, and I’m a nurse as well as an educator for nursing students. I discovered your foundation while researching
medication errors during one of my master’s projects, and I’ve been so impressed by the work you do. As a pediatric nurse, Emily’s story breaks my heart, but it’s been inspiring to see how you took that awful situation and turned it into so much good for other people.
I thought you might like to know that I’ve included Emily’s pictures in a PowerPoint for my junior nursing students on safe medication administration. I like for them to see the faces of individuals whose lives were forever changed (and, in some cases, tragically ended) by medication errors – not to scare them, but to make them more cautious when they start giving medication.
Basically, I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thanks for all you do; it’s so important to look at systems change and how we can make medical care safer for everyone.
Thanks,
Audra W., MSN, RN
I am very pleased to say that my friend, Angela Rei Asatrian, has formally released her very important documentary called “Never Events.” Right after my daughter Emily’s tragic death, from a medication error in 2006, I really thought what had happened to her, had to have been a remote possibility, or a freak accident. Many people today, have the same kind of sentiments I did initially, that these types of medical errors are a very rare occurrence, and are completely unaware that preventable medical error has now been identified as the third leading cause of death in the United States. This makes it an issue that affects each and every one of us, as well as, our loved ones, simply due to the fact that we ALL receive healthcare during the course of our lifetime.
This documentary really goes in depth, in terms of highlighting stories, like my daughter Emily’s, and the clinician/caregivers that have been involved in preventable medical harm. In addition, you will hear about the valuable “lessons learned,” and the thoughts and opinions related to these stories, from some of the leading experts in healthcare and patient safety.
If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend watching it this weekend!
Trailer:
Available on: Amazon, iTunes, AppleTV, Google Play, Microsoft, etc.
Yesterday, my daughter Emily’s story was referenced in this compelling article that appeared in Forbes, titled “Saving Millions of Lives per Year with Intelligent Automation.”
As many of you are already aware, over the years, I have been a very outspoken proponent for the smart adoption, and implementation of technology in healthcare, as the way to eradicate “human error” and save lives.
I am so grateful that Emily’s short life here on earth continues to be remembered in this way, that so many are truly learning from what happened, it’s such a blessing to me as her dad! It tells me Emily’s legacy continues to live on, positively impacting the lives of so many others!
I felt very honored and privileged to have given the keynote for the #NYSCHP Virtual Annual Assembly last week. It was truly a blessing to have the opportunity to show my sincere gratitude and thank their membership for “making good” on an important promise that was made.
In June of 2012, I attended an ASHP House of Delegates Meeting in Baltimore, where the Emily Jerry Foundation’s new National Pharmacy Technician Initiative and Interactive Scorecard was being introduced. Back then, there were 6 states that had zero regulation of their Pharmacy Technicians, and unfortunately, New York was one of them.
On that same day, shortly after the announcement of our new initiative, some #NYSCHP members, led by Leigh Briscoe-Dwyer (NY House Delegate), introduced themselves and pledged to do everything they possibly could to get this vital legislation passed. This is why I am so pleased to be able to say to everyone, that earlier this week, a new law went into effect in New York, recognizing Pharmacy Technicians as licensed professionals and their promise was kept!
So grateful!
Eight years ago, the Emily Jerry Foundation was able to launch its first large scale program, called the National Pharmacy Technician Initiative and Interactive Scorecard, to help assist organization like the New York Council for Health-System Pharmacists (NYSCHP). This program was initially created with the guidance of a wonderful team of people at ASHP, an on-going collaborative partnership that continues to this day!
Today, I would like to congratulate the members of NYSCHP on the passage of a new law in the state of New York that truly recognizes Pharmacy Technicians as a licensed part of the clinical team! Pharmacy Technicians play such a vital role in medication safety! This is precisely why I would like to thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for being so tenacious in your pursuit of this important piece of legislation and never giving up!! God bless
The week before last, on March 31st, I was fortunate to be able to speak to more of our future leaders in healthcare, this time, to the students and faculty of Texas A&M’s School of Pharmacy.
I was really grateful to have this chance to honor Emily’s short life here on earth, in this very special way. I received feedback afterwards, that the students were really impacted by her powerful story, and the valuable lessons that had been learned from what had tragically happened in 2006 with the medication error.
As I have alluded to before, the month of March has always been a very poignant time of year for me, to say the least, it was when Emily left this earth and went to Heaven. This is why I feel so blessed and thankful, to have been given this opportunity, especially this year, to have been able to finish the month off on such a wonderful note!
A special thanks to Koren Dunn for organizing this event!
The Emily Jerry Foundation is determined to help make our nation’s, world renowned, medical facilities safer for everyone, beginning with our babies and children. We are accomplishing this very important objective by focusing on increasing public awareness of key patient safety related issues and identifying technology and best practices that are proven to minimize the “human error” component of medicine. Through our ongoing efforts The Emily Jerry Foundation is working hard to save lives every day.
Last Updated: May 6, 2022 by Nick Pietravoia
The Emily Jerry Legacy: Hope in Action – FreeCE
In May of 2011, five years after my daughter Emily’s tragic death, and shortly after his release from jail, I was blessed with the opportunity to publicly forgive Eric Cropp. I have always felt that, if we were going to prevent what happened to my daughter, from happening to others, then the focus needed to be put back on fixing the broken systems, processes, and protocols, that enable these types of tragedies to occur in hospitals in the first place. To that point, when the focus is put on implementing punitive measures, vilifying those involved, and even criminalizing the medical error, then many of the key contributing factors often get overlooked and do not get addressed at all, such as those that set Eric and the pharmacy technician up for failure that horrible day. With these thoughts in mind, I believe that if we are truly going to save lives from preventable medication errors, we must accept the fact that ALL humans are fallible and capable of making a very “human error,” and design systems around that fact.
If you are a pharmacist, pharmacy technician, or a nurse, I encourage you to please consider registering at freeCE and joining our host Kevin Hope, Eric Cropp, and I this evening!