Palindromes and Patient Safety

I have been very fortunate through my career to have met, learned from, and become friends with many patient advocates from across the country.  People like Helen Haskell, Patty Skolnik, Linda Kenney, Sorrel King, and Carole Hemmelgarn to name just a few. Their ability and willingness to turn personal loss into a life-long commitment to make care safer and of higher quality is quite inspiring…they are the true heroes of this mission.

The same holds true for Victoria and Armando Nahum who I was so fortunate to meet about two years ago. Over a period of 10 months in 2006, the Nahums had three family members stricken by hospital acquired infections, at three different hospitals in three different states, culminating in the death of their 27-year-old son, Josh. Like the families I mentioned above, they also turned their own personal loss into a crusade to reduce and hopefully eliminate hospital acquired infections by starting the Safe Care Campaign.

Last week at the Quality Colloquium, I moderated a morning long session on quality and safety at the bedside. Because patient partnership is a critical piece to any quality and safety mission, I asked Victoria and Rosemary Gibson, author and healthcare advocate, to be part of the panel and lead a patient partnership discussion with the audience. Both Victoria and Rosemary (as usual) were outstanding speakers, and had the audience fully engaged. However, during Victoria’s presentation, something truly special happened. Victoria shared the following video that she and her husband Armando created. Lke most in the auditorium, I had not seen the film before. The video delivered its message that morning in a unique and quite remarkable manner. Few times have I seen an audience as captivated at a medical meeting as they were last Thursday while we watched the Nahum’s two-minute film. The audience burst into spontaneous applause at the conclusion of the video, even though Victoria was still in the middle of her talk.  It was an inspiring moment. The Nahum’s creativity and message captured us all that morning. Take a look for yourself:

The Nahum’s courage is powerful, and their message so very important if we are to escalate the fight to reduce risk and improve the quality of care providing to our patients. We need a greater sense of urgency around all of these efforts, especially at a time in the evolution of healthcare when competing agendas vie for attention and funding. Like Don Berwick, Carolyn Clancy and other healthcare quality and safety leaders who have inspired us to do better, patient advocates like Victoria, Rosemary, Helen, Patty, LInda and Sorrel are leaders who inspire us with their passion and commitment to help us get it right. It is encouraging to see them with a seat at the hospital conference or board room, as keynote speakers at national conferences, and included in hospital quality and safety improvement committees.  How we thought we could do this important work without them still befuddles me.

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