Quality corps: Team effort can trim medical errors

Medical leaders say improving quality of care is a group endeavor that must involve doctors, nurses and other staff members.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Sept. 24, 2001.

Richard C. Davis, MD, trumpets quality medical care with lapel buttons, stickers and purple armbands.

The items are a few of the visual reminders and warning signs used to prevent medical errors at CHRISTUS Spohn Health System in Corpus Christi, Texas, where Dr. Davis is head of quality for the system's six hospitals.

Do they work?

Most of the time.

"They don't prevent all errors, but they do work to reduce them," said Dr. Davis, CHRISTUS Spohn's vice president of medical affairs, a position that includes overseeing quality.

Look into any hospital or other health system across the country and you're bound to find someone like Dr. Davis, whose job is to make sure the medical staff pursues the highest level of quality health care.

In the past several years, as reports about medical errors have rattled the public and the patient-safety movement has gained momentum, these quality leaders have taken a more prominent role in the health care community.

And while some physicians may still cringe when the head of quality summons them to their office, more doctors seem to be warming up to the idea of listening to quality gurus.

"We make them see us as their ally," said Mary Reich Cooper, MD, vice president of clinical practice evaluation and chief quality officer at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. About 6,000 physicians have privileges at the hospital, which has about 96,000 inpatient admissions each year.

"When we say something, they listen to us because we practiced [medicine] at some point," Dr. Cooper said. "We know what they go through." [...]