Since my last article on the Techman/Kanata website, in which I wrote about the downside of layoffs as a management tool, I have been laid off. Isn't life ironic? Now to be honest, I volunteered for the lay off. I did so because I am ready to look for a new job and take my career in new directions. So, for me, this has not been a bad thing. Now I just need to find that new job…

In the meantime, as I reflect on my career and on healthcare in general, I have been reading the Institute of Medicine's Committee of Quality of Health Care in America's report on medical errors, "To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System." (National Academy of Sciences, 1999). This report can be accessed at books.nap.edu/books/0309068371/html/1.html

To say that this report is an eye opener understates its import. I believe that this is a watershed in the history of health care in the US. It opens the door into a room we would all like to think does not exist, a secret room that we health professionals would rather not acknowledge.

President Clinton referred to this as the culture of secrecy. This is the room that contains the terrible cost in human lives, in families, in productivity, in quality of life (without even addressing the economic impact) of mistakes that occur too frequently in health care.

The report estimates that between 33,000 and 98,000 deaths occur each year in US hospitals due to medical errors. And these are just the deaths, not the toll in morbidity as a result of mistakes. These are only the errors that happen in hospitals and do not include all the other locations of care, such as nursing homes, outpatient clinics, extended care, home care, etc. What a staggering thought! A service that we think of as high tech, scientifically based, and systematized causing death.