Doing what is right at the RIGHT time

As a future healthcare executive I often think about what is most important when running a healthcare organization. Obviously, it would be to my benefit to provide the highest quality services and access while maintaining a spotless reputation within my respective community. Many believe that maintaining a spotless reputation naturally entails making absolutely no medical errors. This is simply not the case. I have to vehemently disagree with this notion for a variety of reasons. No matter how high the caliber of your staff or how clean or up to date your facilities and equipment are there will always be medical errors. Healthcare executives must acknowledge that they and their staff are imperfect in nature. We should not and cannot expect anyone not to make mistakes. However, we also cannot allow for the trust we have created with our respective communities to be diminished.

Trust between a healthcare organization and the community is paramount. In many ways it is the "Alamo" of all requirements that constitute a quality healthcare organization. In other words, we as healthcare executives must guard this trust with all the power and tools that we have at our disposal. This requires that healthcare executives and healthcare organizations remain as transparent as possible in reference to its shareholders and the community in general. As painful as it may be, this also means that sharing information such as medical errors must be as thorough and as open as possible. For us to maintain our trust we must understand that "human relationships depend on communication of information; without an honest sharing of information there can be no trust. (Perry, 2002)"

Though healthcare executives are willing to share information of medical error with the community (they have to by law), I often wonder if they share this information quickly or thoroughly enough with those in the community. I recently ran across an article that details how a staff member at Emory University Hospital exposed almost 800 individual staff and patients to the potentially life threatening bacterial infection tuberculosis, known as TB (Moisse, 2011). The article briefly details how the community and those affected were made aware and then went on to describe TB. This information is important, but when did these infections occur? Did the executives in charge not only do the right thing, but did they do it at the right time? Generally, TB is very rare and can be completely eradicated if treated early enough. However, how are we to know if the people exposed were treated in an efficient and effective manner so as to avoid any permanent damage?

The healthcare industry continues to make significant strides in preventing medical error. This strides directly affect how organizations ethically treat situations when medical errors to arise. Though we have done a good job of preventing errors and following ethical guidelines we still need to create a culture that accepts the fact that medical errors will continue. We should embrace these situations as an opportunity to display that while we will make mistakes, our communities can always have trust that we will always do the right thing at the right time.

References:
1. F. Perry. (2002). Medical Errors: Paradise Hills Medical Center. The Tracks We Leave: Ethics in Healthcare Management. p. 1-15.

2. K. Moisse. (May 27, 2011). Atlanta Hospital Employee Exposed Hundreds to Tuberculosis. Retrieved May 29, 2011 from: abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/atlanta-hospital-notifies-700-patients-tuberculosis-exposure/story?id=13702727