Run to Home Base has new finish line - Massachusetts General ...

03.05.10
– Cooper
(Continued from page 1)
Patient Care Services staff specialist; and Karen Miguel, RN, patient safety officer
for MGH Imaging. The group will discuss the MGH’s role in shaping the course of
patient safety internally, nationally and internationally.
Cooper is internationally renowned in the anesthesia community for his
seminal contributions to the prevention of adverse events and patient injury and
is considered a pioneer in the development of medical simulation. His studies
of human error in medicine in the 1970s were among the first ever conducted.
Cooper retired last April as the director of Biomedical Engineering of Partners
HealthCare, having served in this role for 14 years.
The following brief dialogue with Cooper is a preview of the March 11 event.
Q: Your contributions to patient safety are recognized nationally and internationally.
How did you start down this path of focusing on and making major contributions to
patient safety?
A: When I arrived at the MGH in the ‘70s there was no such thing as “patient
safety.” Human error was hardly mentioned openly. I was a biomedical
engineer in the Department of Anesthesia. Our team studied errors in
anesthesia and how they happened. We listened carefully to clinicians about
their stories of error and interpreted those into ways to make anesthesia
safer. Those lessons led me to help create the Anesthesia Patient Safety
Foundation (APSF) in 1985. That was the first organization in the world
that focused solely on patient safety. Some years later, research that APSF
supported led me to see the value of simulation training for patient safety.
Q: What has been of significant influence and meaning to you during your journey as a
patient safety expert?
A. Although I am a biomedical engineer, my work is really not primarily about
technology, it’s about people, especially about how they work together. The
MGH was a fertile environment for people like me. I had freedom to explore
new ideas. Ironically, while it can be challenging to get new ideas accepted into
practice, it’s still a great place to conceive them and try them out. I was lucky
to have great mentors and colleagues, particularly in Ron Newbower, PhD, who
is currently chief technology officer for CIMIT. Richard J. Kitz, MD, the
Department of Anesthesia chief for 20 years, created the kind of environment
that nurtured interdisciplinary collaboration. He formed the Bioengineering
Unit in Anesthesia and enabled engineers like me to work closely with clinicians
to see how things really worked, especially in the operating rooms. Whatever
success is attributed to me is more appropriately due to our collaborative,
supportive and synergistic interdisciplinary team. That wouldn’t have
happened without the environment created by their support and protection.
Q: You are one of the pioneers in health care simulation. What is medical simulation
training, and how has it encouraged a culture change in health care?
A: Simulation is about practicing without putting patients at risk. At the Center
for Medical Simulation, which is another example of MGH’s enabling of
innovation, we work to get people to be more self-reflective, to think more
deeply about how they make mistakes, how accidents happen and how
they can prevent them. By using simulated clinical situations for training on
teamwork and managing emergencies, we are teaching caregivers how to
avoid crises and develop better teamwork skills. We’re working toward a
fundamental culture change – that people don’t practice on patients until they
really know what they are doing first. While I have a broad focus in patient
safety, simulation for teamwork and learning without putting patients at risk
has become my main interest.
©DON wEST
COMMUNITY COLLABORATION: From left, Edward Davis, Boston Police
commissioner; Ayanna Pressley, Boston City councilor-at-large; and Slavin
Community anti-drug
efforts move eastward
in a recenT door-To-door survey conducted by the Boston
Public Health Commission (BPHC), more than 80.7 percent of
East Boston residents expressed concern about drug use among
youth in their community, while 66.4 percent expressed concern
about adult substance abuse. With this in mind, the BPHC,
Mayor Thomas M. Menino and other state and city officials
hosted a Community Summit on Substance Abuse Feb. 13 at
the Harborside Community Center in East Boston to release the
survey’s findings and launch a reenergized anti-drug effort in
the neighborhood.
The summit featured the announcement of the city’s
collaboration with Partners HealthCare and the MGH in the
development of substance abuse prevention programs. Partners
has committed $75,000 to support the anti-drug initiative, and
city officials plan to work to develop programming with the MGH
Center for Community Health Improvement, which has helped
create very successful substance abuse prevention coalitions in
Charlestown and Revere. Peter L. Slavin, MD, MGH president,
and Gary L. Gottlieb, MD, MBA, Partners HealthCare president
and CEO, were on hand at the event to express their support.
“We are extremely pleased to work with East Boston, the
Mayor, the Boston Public Health Commission and the East
Boston No Drugs Coalition to address the community substance
abuse problem,” said Slavin in his remarks. “This is very
challenging, often frustrating but also rewarding work because it’s
really about building a more resilient community.”
Half of the Partners funding will be dedicated to the creation of
a youth education campaign on the dangers of prescription drugs.
The remaining funds will support other efforts deemed necessary
by the East Boston community and may include community
meetings; an adult education campaign; an in-depth look into
policies and procedures related to prescription medications; and
increasing available activities and jobs for youth. n