Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Not significant enough to warrant enhanced statistical tracking

Photo: Frank Franklin II/Associated Press
A doctor friend notes this section from a Wall Street Journal article:

So-called runway excursions are much more serious problems overseas than in the U.S. Still, three years ago the Federal Aviation Administration decided such events were significant enough to warrant enhanced statistical tracking—similar to daily data gathered about near-collisions on runways between aircraft.

And then observes:

Just imagine if there were a Federal Medical Administration or equivalent who could decide that HAI's or endoscope infections "were significant enough to warrant enhanced statistical tracking" - and there were a methodology and mandate to do it! Instead, we exert no oversight over this at all. Just amazing. 

Indeed, see here for a recent example.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Meaning it is significant enough to patients but they don't want to show it.

nonlocal MD said...

Just read "Walk on Water", a book from 2003 about Cleveland Clinic's pediatric heart center, which in the last chapters revealed that mortality statistics vary hugely in this technically difficult field, and everyone in it knows it but the parents. New York is the only state to collect these (and other) heart surgery-related statistics and make them available to the public. One cardiologist said, "It's going to have to come from the government; it won't come from the hospitals."

How long are we going to put up with this?