Dennis Quaid Meeting

Many across the country watched “60 Minutes” a couple of weeks ago when Dennis Quaid told the horrifying story of his twin daughters and family bearing the burden of a life-threatening medical mistake. (“60 Minutes” story)

Thankfully his twins have recovered, but the experience clearly triggered a passion in Dennis Quaid to do all he can to draw attention and seek solutions to a problem —medical mistakes.

I share Dennis Quaid’s passion. I find his willingness to step forward as enormously helpful. Medical mistakes needlessly end tens of thousands of lives each year.

Dennis Quaid and I spoke to a common group this week. Our path crossing provided an opportunity to visit for a while.

Our meeting was a private one; therefore I’m not going to recount the discussion. I just want to say he’s not only likeable in a down-to-earth kind of way; he was open about what he didn’t know and hungry to learn. It is clear he’s taking this very seriously, and systematically doing his homework. This is not a casual or superficial effort. I found the whole thing rather noble, frankly.

I hope to be of help to him and all those working to reduce medical errors, in any way I can.

Comments

I am happy you got to meet with Dennis Quaid about the horrible event that affected his children.

Medical mistakes have been a well known issue for years now, yet, why does it take a celebrity spokeperson for someone in the government to even react to it?

I guess we should hope for a celebrity uninsured person. Maybe then the government will suddenly start caring about the uninsured.

Posted by: Parten Marsley | April 08, 2008 at 12:49 PM

I'm so glad that he has come forward to express his concerns for medical malpractice. Celebrities can do such good just because so many people know who they are. I'm glad to hear that he's taking a stance.

Posted by: Mike | April 10, 2008 at 04:10 PM

Since thousands of persons still die from medical errors, It is sad that it takes a tragedy involving a notable person to bring attention to this issue. This happened with the death of Betsy Lehrman, the Boston Globe's medical writer, who died from a medication error at Dana Farber in Boston; her death helped lead to the Institute of Medicine report "To Err is Human." Many of the recommendations in that study have yet to be implemented.

As a former employee of HHS (I worked in the Office of Inspector General) I know first hand that the Office of the Secretary has opportunities to provide leadership on improving the quality of health care. Here, for example, is a case where the Office of the Assistance Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) made, in my view, a bad policy decision that had,and still has, the potential to cause harm to patients.

Here's what happened (from first hand knowledge)

The National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDBB), which is used by health care organizations to conduct background checks on physicians, requires that hospitals report to the NPDB whenever they restrict of remove a doctor's privileges for over 30 days for reasons of performance or conduct. Although the NPDB started operating in Sept. 1990, almost 20 years ago, 50% of the hospitals in the U.S. have never reported to the NPDB. To address this compliance problem, the Office of Inspector General recommended to NPDB officials that they initiate a legislative proposal that would impose a civil money penalty on hospitals who fail to report. Such a legislative proposal was sent for clearance to ASPE, but it was rejected by ASPE because "it would impose an additional regulatory burden on hospitals..." If hospital peer review is not following the law, and this has the potential to affects patient care, hospitals should be held accountable. If the Secretary wished to address a potential NPDB problem, this would be a good start.

Posted by: Alan Levine | August 14, 2008 at 10:09 PM