Lots of good discussion today. As I sit reflecting back on the day, one thing that sticks out is the idea that it’s not bad people that make errors that lead to patient harm; rather, it can be good people operating in bad / broken systems. This feels like an important distinction. I would be hard pressed to find a person who entered healthcare to cause intentional harm — thinking back to day one of most classes, intros, we all share some version of wanting to help people brought us to a career in healthcare. But obviously mistakes happen. And fatigue happens. And a shift where you are pulled in a thousand directions happens. Good people, bad systems.
So what I commit to in these next few days is to hit the refresh button on why it is I’m in healthcare…and why I feel so strongly that, together, we can affect real change and create better systems in which to do our work.