First, Do Less Harm: Confronting the Inconvenient Problems of Patient Safety (The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work)
"Despite a decade of effort to decrease medical mistakes, progress has been painfully slow and unintended consequences have been the rule, not the exception. Two of the most innovative, iconoclastic thinkers in healthcare—Ross Koppel and Suzanne Gordon—have produced a book that tells us why, and illuminates the way forward. Their book is dramatic, honest, infuriating, surprising, and ultimately hopeful. It is a welcome contribution to the safety field, and deserves to be widely read."—Robert M. Wachter, MD, Professor and Associate Chairman, Dept. of Medicine, Chief, Division of Hospital Medicine, and Marc and Lynne Benioff Endowed Chair, University of California, San Francisco"The question of why we are unable to make the delivery of medical care safer and better—when we know how to do it—is a critically important but often neglected piece of the conversation on health reform. Although one reason for this failure is no doubt due to economic incentives, another is related to the archaic culture of health care. The essays in this book describe a system that is piecemeal, uncoordinated, dysfunctional, and dangerous for patients—and that doesn't have to be that way."—Mary Lehman MacDonald, Director, AFT Healthcare"First, Do Less Harmdoes an excellent job of detailing major system and cultural barriers confronting patient safety. Its authors discuss the important issues that we all face as frontline providers trying to deliver the best health care we can."—John Chuo, MD, MS, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia