I chose to attend the Telluride experience because I truly do value patient safety in all respects, as cliche as I imagine it may sound. As a healthcare practitioner they may be nothing more unsettling when you are unable to answer questions such as ” How do I safely care for this patient or population?”, “How can I protect these patients from themselves”,”What adverse events are associated with this condition or disease process and what protocols are designed for these situations as they potentially arise?” or ” What situation would be considered a medical emergency?”. The answers to questions such as these are the foundation from which we guide evidence based practice polices and approaches.
I believe that this experience will allow me to collaborate with like minds that may bare perspectives that allow me to challenge my own ideals and practices to better provide safe patient care. This is the essence of quality improvement and positive outcomes for patient populations. None of the respective fields in which we contribute can progress if we do not routinely challenge what we believe to be the most effective evidence based practice procedures. John J. Nance’s Why Hospitals Should Fly High is tragic example of what can happen when we fail to continually put safety above all else and push one another to do the same. Nance’s comparison of those events rather effectively demonstrates a pathway to an adverse outcome if we simply imagine the pilot to be a physician, for example. Lapses in communication and procedure amongst the interdisciplinary may not be completely unavoidable, but when we overlook patient safety we constantly endanger them; the result can be devastating, which Nance as intimates.
I am looking forward to investigating different approaches to safety from the varying residents, medical students and nursing students as well as hopefully providing something meaningful from my own practice and experience.