A Dungeon of Dangerous Practices

Abstract

American hospitals are sometimes unsafe. This is not news to the staff at Santiago Health. In fact, the leadership at Santiago Health, a three-hospital system with one large hospital campus and two smaller satellite hospitals, is keenly aware of the indictments of the quality of current medical practices published by the Institute of Medicine. When it comes to medication use, Santiago Health’s leaders know they have to solve many safety and billing problems. The organization attempts to mobilize its staff to create a multidisciplinary team to address medication safety. The system’s organizational value of achieving excellence bolsters this work.

Santiago Health’s main campus is the Santiago Care Centers (SCC). The SCC includes a 556-bed hospital, a cancer center, a cardiac care center, and an outpatient surgery center. Dr Trubelli, a compassionate pediatrician and a former Chief of Staff of the SCC, is now the Medical Director of Information Systems (IS) for Santiago Health. He has witnessed and been forced to explain too many medical errors during his career. He desperately wants to implement a system to bar code medications in advance of administration. Such systems provide nurses with electronic verification of all drug orders at the bedside. Scanning medication bar codes effectively prevents medication errors.