Just wondering
Will the death of Kanye West’s mother, possibly from surgical complications, be what it takes to get the masses to pay attention to patient safety?
November 13, 2007 I Written By
Neil Versel
I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.
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2 responses to "Just wondering"
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Thats an interesting question. Especially given that many people believe that their healthcare should be free. My own opinion is that surgery is always going to be risky because of biological variation between patients. It is very difficult to develop models to predict outcomes because of this. Also how can a patient evaluate the risk of a procedure given the massive information asymmetry?Steve
I don’t think so. There are a lot of other arumored aspects of this case that will draw attention away from the greater patient safety debate. The 2002 death of sports journalist Dick Schaap should have been the wake-up call. He was in good health, receiving a very common procedure (hip replacement) at a very reputable hospital – yet he died from a hospital acquired infection.