Crossing the Quality ...Gorge?

Hi All!

I’m embarrassed to say that I had to look up the word “chasm” in the dictionary this morning.

I’m writing a case study about a medication administration assessment that my company just completed and I’m tying it back to the Institute of Medicine’s Six Aims for improving American Healthcare. I know all about the 1999 release To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, the IOM report that brought tons of public attention to the crisis of patient safety in the United States. But, admittedly, I don’t really know much about the 2001, IOM follow up: Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century.

My first question: “What is a chasm?”

So, I look up “chasm” in the dictionary and it says “GORGE”. And its in all capital letters – like the actual meaning of the word GORGE isn’t enough, they must capitalize it as if to REALLY emphasize how LARGE this word and its meaning is. I feel like its screaming at me.

I slam the book shut and I’m not sure I want to know any more about the quality GORGE in American health systems. I have two young children, one who has been hospitalized twice for respiratory infections, and sometimes ignorance is bliss.

My second question: “If I ignore it, will it go away?”

You know the saying, “if I can’t see it, it can’t see me”? Yeah, well, unfortunately it doesn’t apply here. Because if we close our eyes, and ignore this problem, it doesn’t go away - it gets bigger and it becomes, well, a GORGE.

I can’t help but feel somewhat like a proud parent as I write this case study. The hospital that I am writing about has the courage to open its eyes and say, “we need to find out what we don’t know” and they hired us to sift through their individual GORGE, like an archeological dig, and we were able to come to them with the truth and some very simple ways they can address their most pressing issues around patient safety.

Like many hospitals around the country, they could have “closed the proverbial book” in hopes that the issues would simply go away. But, this hospital didn’t. They made it a priority to uncover their realities so they can implement the changes needed to support a deeper level of safety.

In the spirit of being “in the motherhood”, I’d like to give them some positive feedback so they keep leading the way to high quality care. In the meantime, I’d like to encourage other institutions to look at their own “chasm”. And maybe the next IOM report can read, “Crossing the Quality Bridge: How American Health Systems Made the Safety Connection”.

I believe in my work.

Claire