Misadventures in Health Care: Inside Stories (Human Error and Safety)
This wonderful collection reminds us that improving patient safety is a matter of life and death.—Donna E. ShalalaPresident, University of Miami, Former Secretary of Health and Human ServicesMedical error kills. Common sense says to punish those responsible. Common sense is wrong, as this book so powerfully demonstrates. Each chapter starts with a gripping case history. Each demonstrates that it is the system that is at fault, that the people now being blamed and punished are often victims, not culprits, and that no progress will be made until attitudes--and the entire system--are changed. This important book should be required reading of everyone concerned with medical safety, which means everyone: anyone involved in treatment, anyone who might someday get sick.—Don NormanNorthwestern University, Nielson Norman Group, Author ofThe Design of EverydThis book should be widely read not only by researchers and practitioners in all the medical specialties, but also by professionals in the social sciences, human factors, and engineering. Indeed, it should be read by lay persons as well because it contains messages for everyone interested in the integrity of medical care and practice. And who, these days, is not?—Alphonse ChapanisProfessor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins University