Dr. Pronovost on fighting infections

Originally posted 3-28-2011:
The Wall Street Journal published a short article today featuring Dr. Peter Pronovost.  Dr. Pronovost was one of the key leaders behind the use of checklists to reduce infections in the Michigan Keystone Project. The article is a great read as he talks about how the healthcare culture is impeding innovation, when hospitals should be able to come up with solutions to reducing healthcare associated infections (HAIs).

A couple things I wanted to highlight:
  • I really liked the fact he believes public reporting is a good idea to make healthcare data more transparent, especially around infections. This gets back to my last post around the need for transparency to promote patient safety.
  • Interesting quote on the lack of acceptance of the checklist in healthcare: "Could you imagine any other industry tolerating the violation of an evidence-based standard that kills 31,000 people a year?"