What can be done about the huge medical error fatality problem Dennis Quaid identified when his baby twins were almost killed? Electronic medical records (EMR) are a start. Then as Kent Bottles suggests, let’s use those records to improve physician care:

“Dr. Kim A. Adcock, the radiology chief at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, created a system that misses one-third fewer cancers on mammograms and “has achieved what experts say is nearly as high a level of accuracy as mammography can offer.” At the heart of the program was his willingness to keep score and confront his doctors with their results. He had to fire three radiologists who missed too many cancers, and he had to reassign 8 doctors who were not reading enough films to stay sharp.”

We could use more report cards for physicians, including firing ones with failing grades, and maybe even paying the really good ones more, or at least getting them to teach the others.

-jsq