Harm of Anti-psychotic Medication a Problem for Patients in Hospitals, Too

(Published in The Huffington Post) A government agency in Ontario has called for nursing homes in that province to re-evaluate their use of antipsychotic medications like quetiapine (marketed under the brand name Seroquel). Health Quality Ontario says more than 60 percent of residents in some nursing homes are receiving Seroquel and other drugs like it. […]

Healthcare Complaints: The Casino Where Patients and Families Seldom Win

  It’s time for a top-to-bottom review of just how user-friendly and fair our healthcare complaint bodies really are.  You expect that casinos are going to be slanted in favor of the house. But you don’t imagine those kind of odds when it comes to complaints about hospitals and healthcare providers that may have caused […]

What You Won’t See on Television About Canada’s Healthcare System

Deaths from med­ical mis­takes occur one patient at a time. Yet, taken together in Canada, they are the equiv­a­lent of a large city bus full of pas­sen­gers crash­ing and killing every­one on board every day of the year.  So why is there so little focus on this epidemic of harm? (Published in The Huffington Post) […]

Our Healthcare Systems Need A Strong Dose of Compassion

It should be no more acceptable to encounter an absence of compassion, kindness and respect in the healthcare setting than it is to buy a new car and discover they forgot to include the brakes.  Yet it happens to patients and families everyday around the world, along with the emotional harm it unleashes. (Published in […]

Will the IOM Report on Diagnostic Errors Make Any Difference?

The prognosis for the IOM’s newest bombshell on diagnostic errors is not encouraging. Its first report in 1999 on medical errors promised a 50 percent reduction in 5 years.  Since then the number of deaths has soared to the point where hospital harm is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. and Canada.   […]

Less to Canada’s Hospital “Never” List Than Meets the Eye

More than a decade late and half the size of the U.S. version, Canada’s hospital “never” list falls short in giving patients and families the protection they need (Published in The Huffington Post, September 23, 2015) As of last Friday, sawing off the wrong limb became a “never” event in Canada. It’s one of 15 incidents the Canadian Patient Safety Institute […]

Snapshots of Hospital Harm

“Too often, healthcare organisations, through their inept and unfeeling responses, amplify these later waves of harm rather than mitigating their damaging effects.”  Sir Liam Donaldson, M.D., world-renowned patient safety advocate. Patients and families share their stories about medical errors and their emotional impact We hear heart-wrenching stories every day from patients and families who have experienced […]

Quiet Heroes Are Making Hospitals Safer

(Published in The Huffington Post) Visit any major city in North America and you will quickly discover the link between cash and name recognition in healthcare. Some rich person gives a few million to an urban hospital and their name goes up on a wing. Recently, a generous $3 million donation by one time investment […]