An unusual group of doctors and hospital administrators met Wednesday in Jerusalem to discuss how to grapple with the growing problem of medical errors – an issue that has increasingly concerned medical professionals around the world.
Israeli, Arab and American hospital staffers met at HadassahHospital at MountScopus to form a consortium to fight the rising phenomenon. Most Arab members of the team were unable to attend due to difficulties stemming from the Ramadan fast but expressed their interest in the project. Organizers said they were expected to participate in future.
The collaboration, which involves a network of institutions from Israel, the United States, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and Kuwait, is led by Professor Tzvi Stern, director-general at Hadassah Hospital-Mount Scopus. Six Israeli hospitals are involved, including ShebaMedicalCenter at Tel HaShomer, WolfsonHospital, MeirHospital, TelAviv-SouraskyMedicalCenter and the NetanyaGeriatricMedicalCenter.
Dr. Amitai Ziv, deputy director-general at Sheba and founder and director of the hospital's Medical Simulation Roengen center, described his program at the meeting. Ziv's world-renowned center trains and screens the skills of medical personnel and therapists using professional actors and advanced simulators, including medical dolls, to simulate disaster scenes and other medical crisis situations.
Medical Errors: Ethics and Legal Liability Issues
The international collaboration is intended examine the way illnesses are triggered at medical institutions through commonly-provided services such as respirators, intravenous-administered medications and fluids, adverse reactions to medications, hospital-borne bacterial infections and pressure ulcers.
There is a reason for all the fuss.
In the past 15 years, malpractice lawsuits against doctors have multiplied exponentially, with an average of NIS500 million to NIS 700 million shekels being granted to injured patients by the courts each year.
Israeli malpractice lawyers earn up to a total of approximately NIS 150 million, according to Professor Shimon Pollack, an expert in medical legal issues and chairman of the department of immunology at the TechnionRappaportMedicalSchool.
There was great concern in January 2006 when then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was felled by a massive stroke, that the crisis had been caused through a medical error. Doctors who treated him for an earlier, milder stroke in December 2005 admitted treating him with large doses of blood thinners at the time. Medical experts quoted in news reports speculated that the anti-coagulants might have caused the later, completely debilitating stroke.
Sharon, 80, has remained in a vegetative state since that time.
