HM15 Q&A: How Will You Make Healthcare Safer?
QUESTION: Quality improvement guru Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, senior vice president for patient safety and quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, challenged attendees at HM15 to finish this sentence about how they will make healthcare safer: “I will…” The Hospitalist talked to a few doctors who accepted the challenge.
“I will let them know that everything is possible. If you’re really negative and you feel like you are not going to get your goal, nothing will be done and nothing will be accomplished for the patient.”
–Hospitalist Salah Mohageb, MD
Virtua Medical Group, Marlton, N.J.
“Spending more time with the patients, listening to their stories in life and trying to incorporate that into daily rounds and your overall coordination of care for the patient is really important. My job is to make sure the patient is heard. The patients and families—their stories and their requests of care really need to be heard.”
–Hospitalist Moncy Varughese, MD
Highland Park Hospital, NorthShore University
Health System, Chicago
“I’m always a guy that sits down in the patient’s room, looks them in the eye, and doesn’t leave until all the questions are asked. So I really applaud those types of initiatives. That hits home and makes you want to keep teaching and telling less experienced doctors how to do that.”
–Timothy Farmer, MD, locums tenens hospitalist in North Carolina
