Dr. Wachter discusses a major cause of medical malpractice
It's actually a variation of the "safety is too expensive" business model often discussed at TortDeform:
When my kids were little, they loved going to the International House of Pancakes (IHOP), particularly the one about 15 minutes from my house and a few minutes from San Francisco International Airport (SFO). I personally find the food at IHOP a bit gross, but being a dutiful dad, we would trudge to the IHOP nearly every weekend.
Unfortunately, on most weekend mornings, the line extended 50 feet into the parking lot. Seeing that, I’d push the kids to move on to a decent place for a civilized breakfast. “No, dad, we wanna stay. And the line really moves fast!”
They were right. No matter how long the line, it seemed like we were seated in a matter of minutes, barely enough time to watch more than a couple of 747s fly overhead on their way to Hawaii. How did they manage this kind of throughput?
Once we sat down in the booth, the answer became clear. We were handed our menus within a few seconds. Less than a minute later, a waitress asked for our order. The food was delivered within 6 or 7 minutes. When I paused to catch my breath, the waitress was there. “Is there anything else I can get you this morning?", she asked helpfully. Any hesitation... and the check instantly appeared, to be settled at the front register. Another family was seated the nanosecond we rose from our seats.
The point is that a business like IHOP – with its relatively low profit margin per customer – is all about production: everything is designed to get you in and out promptly. But production carries a cost: with haste sometimes come mistakes. I remember many times when our cute little syrup well was filled with four boysenberry syrups, rather than the appropriate assortment (maple, strawberry, blueberry, and boysenberry). But that seemed a small price to pay for speed.
In other words, in the ever-present battle between production and reliably getting it right, production wins at the IHOP.As I mentioned, the South San Francisco IHOP is on the flight path of San Francisco International Airport. The tension between production and safety is particularly acute at SFO, since its two main runways are 738 feet apart (the picture at left is an actual SFO landing, with a bit of an optical illusion. But not much of one – the runways are really close).
The FAA has inviolable rules about throughput, designed to ensure that safety is defended at all costs. For example, when the fog rolls in and the cloud cover falls to 3000 feet (which happens all the time during the summer), one of the two runways is closed, not only gumming up SFO's works but those of the entire US air traffic control system. And, whatever the weather, planes cannot land more often than one per minute.
In other words, in the aviation industry, in the battle between production and safety, safety wins. And aviation's remarkable safety record is the result.
I’ve used this IHOP/SFO metaphor many times in speeches to hospital staff and leaders over the past few years, and usually end it by asking audiences: “In its approach to production and safety, does your hospital look more like the IHOP or SFO?” Although things have gotten a bit better over the last couple of years, the answers still run about 10:1 in favor of the IHOP. (Emphasis added.)
Too often, the debate over medical malpractice is over how to hold doctors accountable. Wouldn't it be nice if we all worked together to figure out how to reduce errors?
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