These past two days, I walked around one of the most beautiful places that I ever seen in my life but the most important walk I’ll take this week will NOT be around Telluride.
“You never truly know someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” – Unknown
As a pharmacy student I often find myself stuck within my own discipline. I am passionate about improving patient safety by reducing medication errors. I realize in order to do so I must branch out of my bubble and gain a different perspective…a global perspective.
Over the past two days, the camp emphasized the interdisciplinary push for patient safety throughout the entire health care system. The speakers have brought to life immense burdens and barriers that physicians and nurses face daily. Understanding various barriers and complexities in patient centered care only prove what John Nance described as an immediate need to transform the medical culture. Changing culture seems like a daunting task until we truly understand each disciplines positions and consider ways to empathize and collaborate within the medical system.
For example, I was encouraged during small group discussion on the idea of changing systems process by incorporating various health care members as checks to ensure patients are completely informed about their medical care during their entire hospital stay. This improves the pathway for communication and shows the patient how the entire health team is concerned and focused on the patient’s health.
I believe these collaborations will allow the medical teams to form an united pathway of concern, which will be used to run and navigate various trails that will help medicine reach the peak of the mountain of patient safety. Only then can the entire medical team collectively walk in the patient’s shoes and find ways to prevent medical errors.