Title: Unaccountable : what hospitals won't tell you and how transparency can revolutionize health care /
Authors: Makary, Marty
Publisher: Bloomsbury Press,
Year: 2012
Subjects: Medical personnel and patient.; Patient education.; Health facilities Public relations.; Medical errors.; Medical care Quality control; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disease & Health Issues.; Hospitals; Public Relations; Hospital Administration ethics; Hospital-Patient Relations; Medical Errors; Patient Education as Topic; Physician-Patient Relations; Quality Control
Abstract: "Dr. Marty Makary is co-developer of the life-saving checklist outlined in Atul Gawande's bestselling The Checklist Manifesto. As a busy surgeon who has worked in many of the best hospitals in the nation, he can testify to the amazing power of modern medicine to cure. But he's also been a witness to a medical culture that routinely leaves surgical sponges inside patients, amputates the wrong limbs, and overdoses children because of sloppy handwriting. Over the last ten years, neither error rates nor costs have come down, despite scientific progress and efforts to curb expenses. Why?To patients, the healthcare system is a black box. Doctors and hospitals are unaccountable, and the lack of transparency leaves both bad doctors and systemic flaws unchecked. Patients need to know more of what healthcare workers know, so they can make informed choices. Accountability in healthcare would expose dangerous doctors, reward good performance, and force positive change nationally, using the power of the free market. Unaccountable is a powerful, no-nonsense, non-partisan diagnosis for healing our hospitals and reforming our broken healthcare system"--
Contents: Some random doctor. Dr. Hodad and the raptor ; Danger zones ; The New York experiment ; The supersurgeon and the Shah ; "How I like to do it" ; Navigating the system ; Tap the power of patient outcomes -- The Wild West. Impaired physicians ; Medical mistakes ; Ask before you give ; Eat what you kill ; The all-American robot -- Transparency time. Drivers of culture ; Healthonomics ; Candid cameras ; A new generation for honest medicine ; What accountability looks like.