Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety Releases Two Presentations on Reducing Medical Errors and Obstetric Malpractice Claims

CHICAGO, July 7, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- At the recent conference "15th Annual Advanced Forum on Obstetric Malpractice Claims," a panel of four health experts discussed "Implementing Preventive Measures, Reducing Risk and Managing Adverse Outcomes."

On this panel were:

• Bruce Patsner, MD (Vice Chair, Quality, INOVA)
• Angela W. Russell (Partner, Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP)
• Jeffrey Segal, MD, JD (Founder and CEO, Medical Justice Services, Inc.)
• Michael Wong, JD (Founder and Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)

Dr. Segal spoke about how a thousands of eyes and ears can be used to promote patient safety:

"I noted that far too often patients and staff see near-misses (which should more accurately be called near-hits), and say nothing. These early warning signals receive no action. Why? Because no one transmits this information to anyone with authority to take action. These are missed opportunities.

"The good news is that patients CAN be the eyes and ears for a practice. The way to turn this idea into substantive action is to gather patient feedback on an iPad at the point-of service. This information is uploaded, with the patient's authorization, to the dominant review sites found on page one of a Google search. Other survey questions are fed back to the practice internally. Crowdsourcing patient reviews + transparency is a winning formula for enabling positive change in a non-adversarial, non-threatening way."

Mr. Wong spoke on how death and brain damage in newborns and their delivering mothers might be prevented.

He discussed analyses of closed claims data of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists. Recommendations for prevented malpractice claims included three areas for improvement:

1. Have the right equipment present and make sure caregivers know how to use it.
2. Monitor patients with accepted standards of practice.
3. Accurately analyze the information provided by monitors and adjust the anesthetic care plan accordingly.

For Dr. Segal's presentation on how to create a culture of safety, please click here.

For Mr. Wong's presentation on preventing death and brain damage in newborns and their mothers, please click here.

PPAHS hopes to be able to release the presentations of Dr. Patsner and Ms. Russell shortly.

About Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety

Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety is a non-profit 501(c)(3) whose mission is to promote safer clinical practices and standards for patients through collaboration among healthcare experts, professionals, scientific researchers, and others, in order to improve health care delivery. For more information, please go to www.ppahs.org

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SOURCE Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS)

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