Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Making Healthcare Better

To Err Is Human Blog Series Logo
This post is part of our two-week series commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the seminal IOM Report "To Err Is Human." To see all posts in the series, please click here.

In a recent article in the New York Times Magazine, Brent James, the chief quality officer at Intermountain Healthcare (a health network in Utah and Idaho that President Obama uses as a model for health reform), explains that for most of our history, doctors have done more harm than good. But, eventually good science won out over the use of primitive techniques (like leeching). With newer practices, medicine was able to triumph over diptheria, measles and polio. But, with more advances brought more options. The article notes that strenuous scientific testing is required of any practice before it is brought into use, but that once a treatment is proven, the "science is left behind." James asserts that using a scientifically-proven protocol is the best way to treat patients... and he has the proof to back him up.

Read the article here.

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