Why America needs a National Patient Safety Board

Within hours of the catastrophic Fern Hollow bridge collapse in Pittsburgh, USA, the National Transportation Safety Board was on the scene, finding answers to “Why?” and “How can we keep this from ever happening again?” What could be more obvious than the value of having a team of experts on the alert — and empowered with the authority — to provide promising solutions to dangerous situations?

Transportation industries embraced the recommendations because they know what its corporate mission and obligation to the public is: to get people from place to place as efficiently and safely as possible.

Sadly, we cannot say the same for health care, says Karen Wolk Feinstein. 

There is no single federal agency entrusted with a sole mission: to make health care as safe as possible by investigating solutions to major threats. Therefore, there has been comparatively little progress to protect patients from medical mistakes.

We don’t understand well enough the preconditions and root causes of adverse events, making it difficult to prevent harm before it happens; we haven’t deployed the safety technology and analytics we have available; and we often don’t share existing lessons learned or actionable solutions, says Karen.

That’s why a coalition of US experts, including leaders from hospitals, insurers, patient safety groups, consumer advocates, foundations, universities, technology companies and employers has formed to promote the establishment of an independent, nonpunitive federal agency dedicated to finding data-driven solutions to the problem of medical error. A National Patient Safety Board, modelled after the National Transportation Safety Board, would identify patient safety events, study the root causes of these events and issue recommendations to prevent future lapses.

More than 80% of the NTSB’s recommendations are acted upon. Imagine if this occurred in health care: How many lives could be saved? How much needless suffering could be prevented?

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Source: Pittsurgh Post-Gazette, 10 February 2022