Week 2 Post 2: Safety Checks and Bias

 In a medical setting, patient safety and health is the number one concern. However, doctors can accidentally make mistakes or cause problems that can hurt the patient. Bias in doctors especially can cause both medical and legal issues, as doctors who are uncomfortable with their patients are less likely to give them proper care. When bias causes an issue and the patient does not get proper care and is harmed, it is defined as a sentinel event. A sentinel event is an unexpected occurrence involving death, or serious physical or psychological injury. The event can cause death, permanent harm, or severe, temporary harm, and it may repeat itself in the future. It is caused by problems with technology, doctors, or if patients' information is inaccurate. What causes sentinel events most often are assumptions made by medical staff. Bias can influence what doctors assume or think about a patient, causing this to happen. Bias is not always the root cause of a sentinel event, but it can still be a contributing factor.  When such a thing occurs, a Patient Safety Officer can go and investigate what caused it. They are appointed in medical centers such as hospitals and are charged with documenting and investigating sentinel events. A Patient Safety Officer can be the first step in fixing bias, as their entire job is to figure out what the thought process behind the mistake was. When a Patient Safety Officer interviews the people involved as part of a Root Cause Analysis, they should always check for bias. This way if bias is found they can set up measures to make sure the bias is eliminated. 

Source: 

CSI - ME Case Studies in Medical Errors

JOSEPH HOPKINS, MD, MMM
Associate Chief Medical Officer
Stanford Health Care
Course Director

STEVEN CHINN, DPM, MA, MBA
Interim Director, Occupational Health Services
Stanford Health Care
Stanford School of Medicine
Co-Course Director