Remaking American Medicine: First Do No Harm

The second installment of this program, entitled "First Do No Harm," was a two part examination of how the American health care system and health care providers are not doing all that they can to live up to the oath "first do no harm."

While it was reported that 98,000 hospital patients die annually in the U.S. because of medical errors, a further 90,000 die due to infection they contract while in hospital. Among the various antibiotic-resistant bacterium, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureous (MRSA) and the battle against it in the Pittsburgh hospital system was the focus of the program. Because of the competitive nature of the American health care system, hospitals are less likely to share information with their competitors about their success. Such is the case with initiatives to reduce infection rates. For some in the health care system, such a stance flies in the face of the oath "first do no harm." One such doctor, Dr Richard Shannon, Chief of Medicine at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, has lead the battle against hospital-contracted infections, reducing the infection rate from 49% to 6%.

The second part of the program focused on how information technology can reduce errors in patient care. The personal story that illustrated this issue was that of an elderly woman suffering needlessly because of a hand-written medication order being incorrectly transcribed. According to the program, less than 20% of doctors in the U.S. use computers in their work. One such hospital in New Jersey is endeavouring to change that, having implemented at $40 million computer network and training physicians to use it. Patient information is entered in one place providing everyone involved in her or his care easy access. Such systems also have the ability to alert health care providers to such things as harmful drug combinations. On a much wider scale, there are those who are advocating for a national health information network.