An answer: Why not an NTSB for Healthcare? II

[Post moved to other blog.]

Continuing this topic: In the seminal Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, "An NTSB for Healthcare", a central question is posed:

Not Why an NTSB for Healthcare ... Why Not?

Medical Healthcare is often compared to Aviation on Quality of Care and Patient Safety, but the comparison is wrong and ineffectual: the story is poor and we're not yet ready to hear the message.

We, as travellers, wouldn't step onto any airplane if Safety and Quality were as variable and haphazard as Medical Healthcare in Hospitals, Primary Care Physicians, Specialists and other facilities.

So why, as individuals and a society, do we accept, seemingly without comment, 1000-fold worse Safety from Medical Healthcare than Aviation?

Medical Error, or "preventable harm", is the leading single cause of death in US Hospitals and seems to be heading in the wrong direction. Which, because Medical Healthcare is a universal, not optional, service, should be causing concern and outrage, instead it goes unremarked and unnoticed in the Media and hence with the General Public.

The more subtle cause is: Preventable Deaths and Serious Injury from Medical Error as not centrally collated and reported.
Even the more complex story, the decline in Medical Quality of Care and Patient Safety, cannot be told because there are no data.

Should then Media report the statistics?
No, as even Stalin knew: A Single Death is a Tragedy; a Million Deaths is a Statistic.

We are our own worst enemies as a society, when we need to address endemic problems:

• Without "something out of the ordinary", stories have no "news value".
• We suffer boredom and "compassion fatigue" from long running stories, no matter how terrible.
• Statistics are not personal, there is no emotional connection, hence little "news value".
• Nobody is forcing Medical Healthcare to report and categorise 100% of Medical Errors. This removes the possibility of even a larger, investigative story.

What the estimable brothers Heath, authors of "Made to Stick", don't make much of is a zeroth requirement:

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, and
there is nothing less interesting than idea before its time.

The efforts being made to report and address the epidemic of Medical Healthcare Error are earnest, "real", well-crafted and creative. In another time they'd succeed, wildly.

The Public, and hence Politicians and legislators/regulators, are not yet ready to hear this message.
Perhaps we'll hit a tipping point when Healthcare either becomes generally unaffordable or 30% of people are directly affected by serious Medical Harm.

Until then, I hope those fighting this Good Fight can keep their spirits up and continue in the face of disinterest.