AMC/NOMA encourages you to join a special introduction of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) WebM&M, the nation's first patient safety and health care resource and journal designed for physicians. The Web address is www.webmm.ahrq.gov
The statewide introduction will be presented as a free Web-Ex Conference Call. Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, director of AHRQ, and Lucien Leape, MD, adjunct professor of health policy, Harvard School of Public Health, will give opening remarks. Dr. Clancy is a practicing internist and a highly distinguished patient safety expert. Under Dr. Clancy, AHRQ is focusing its efforts on rebuilding the health care delivery system in order to close the gap between what physicians know is the best care for their patients and what our system routinely delivers.
Dr. Leape, an internationally renowned patient safety pioneer, has played a central role in raising the national consciousness regarding health care errors. Dr. Leape believes that health care errors harm 1 of 25 patients in the nation's hospitals and can be reduced by 90 percent over the next decade if the health care system shifts its focus from punishing individuals to redesigning its systems. Robert Wachter, MD, professor and associate chairman, department of medicine, University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), and editor of Web M&M, will lead a tour of the site.
The Web M&M site seeks to better prepare physicians to take a proactive role in changing our health care system. Physicians, owing to their ability to think in terms of "systems," are well suited to help reshape our health care culture and infrastructure to significantly enhance patient safety and outcomes.
The first step in changing the health care system is to recognize that health care errors are systems issues. The morbidity and mortality cases highlighted on the Web M&M site each month will help physicians recognize that most errors are not the result of sloppy, poorly informed or malicious physicians, but rather functions of overly complicated processes of care with an inadequate focus on error proofing. The Web M&M site features a case-based approach that emphasizes changes such as teamwork training, checklists, and computerization of medical records and prescriptions, which can be made in health care systems.
Each month, five cases are published in various specialties including internal medicine, surgery/anesthesia, obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry, radiology, and emergency medicine. Physicians submit cases to the Web M&M site anonymously. The most interesting cases are posted on the site, accompanied by short, evidence-based commentaries by the nation's top experts in patient safety. One case each month is expanded into an interactive learning module - the "Spotlight Case." Physicians can earn free Category 1 Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits by successfully completing questions related to the Spotlight Case.
The Web M&M site launch is being co-sponsored by Ohio KePRO, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Ohio, the Ohio Hospital Association, State of Ohio Medical Board, the Ohio Department of Health, the Ohio Patient Safety Discussion Forum, the Ohio Patient Safety Institute, the Ohio Osteopathic Association, the Academy of Medicine of Cleveland/Northern Ohio Medical Association, and the Cincinnati Medical Association.