The Real Cause of Preventable Medical Error

The good news is that countless lives can be saved, and so many senseless tragedies averted, if we are just willing to acknowledge the REAL cause of preventable medical error!!

Repost from 9/20/2017…
Many people will often ask me, what is the primary cause of preventable medical error that actually makes it the third leading cause of death in the United States? The answer is quite simple…it’s the inherent “human error” component of medicine. The fact that every single clinician, no matter how well intended, compassionate, or empathetic, they may be, is capable of making a “human error”. This is precisely why the focus of my work over the past decade, since the tragic loss of my daughter Emily in 2006, has been on saving lives through the modification of internal systems, processes, and protocols in medicine. This is also why I have been such an outspoken proponent for the smart implementation and adoption of technology, as the tools, to significantly reduce, if not completely eliminate, the probability of “human error” from creeping into the equation during the course of treatment, for ALL patients. As Steve Jobs so eloquently put it, “Technology does not have human flaws”!