Tribune Article Calls for Hospital Reform to Lessen Likeliness of Medical Malpractice

April 27, 2011

In a Chicago Tribune Article written by Anna Marie Hajek, president and chief executive officer of Clarity Group, Inc., Chicago, Hajek calls for the leaders of health care organizations to demand safety at their facilities and for their patients. Hajek has worked in the risk/quality/safety management fields of health care now for over 30 years and discusses her personal observations from her three-decade long career in this article.

A previous Tribune article referenced by Hajek discussed the safety challenges at several Chicago area hospitals and concluded that systematic error prevention needs to be built into the traditional care delivery process in order to implement a genuine culture of change. This article criticized hospitals unwillingness to implement these changes and encouraged these hospitals to start taking on a proactive approach to minimizing medical malpractice. Hajek references this Tribune article to support her call for reforms that would unite health care providers to join forces with patient safety organizations to implement new measures that would promote safe practices in a safe environment.

Public data used to support Hajek’ point of view shows that each time there is a sudden and public event concerning hospital safety that is on the news or sensationalized by a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer it seems to be taken as a single unfortunate incident when in fact the underlying issue of not addressing known safety concerns results in far more than a single event. Hajek asserts that while every event may have its own unique circumstances, a hospital’ failure to address safety concerns is the root of the problem.

Hajek calls on health care leaders to become zealots in the name of safety and “to invest in the hard work of culture change to make it everyone’s responsibility to raise unsafe conditions and act on them.” Hajek insists that the best reforms would be introduced in a learning environment supporting complete safety reform by exploring the fundamental issues that raise unsafe conditions and by finding solutions to them.