Technology Commercialization

Can we solve medical safety problems with best practices from aviation?

It is well known that many new innovations occur by borrowing a concept from a different field and applying it to a current problem.  Some authors call this “technology brokering”.

As an active pilot, I have always been impressed with the tremendous safety record of aviation.  Commercial airlines are as much as 100 times safer than driving automobiles on a “fatalities per passenger mile basis”.  General aviation is 10 times safer provided the pilot has greater than 1000 hours experience.

This safety record is largely due to the vigilant practices required by the FAA.  Aircraft must have in depth annual inspections.  Pilots must meet currency requirements.  Regulations are defined around safety.  Every accident is investigated and the causes are incorporated in one way or another into improving aviation safety.

In stark contrast, I am extremely unimpressed with the safety record in hospitals. Patients are often given improper medication doses.  Unnecessary infections occur frequently.  Changing of shifts causes discontinuities in the treatment of patients, sometimes leading to errors, even fatal errors.

I have often thought that if the medical field, particularly the management of hospital care, were able to borrow the best practices of the FAA (at least at an abstract level), the safety in hospitals could be improved dramatically.

Yes, potential liabilities causes errors to be buried rather than reported.  But isn’t there a way to change the system to require or incentivize the reporting of mistakes so that we can learn from them.  How can the best practices of the FAA be transformed into the field of health care to improve safety?  Feel free to post.