9 Minimizing risk, Maximizing safety Dr Rajan Madhok, Medical Director, NHS Manchester, ENGLAND and GAPIO Lead on Patient Safety (rajan.madhok@btinternet.com) Dr Nikhil Datar, Consultant Gynaecologist, Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai
R
amesh Sawant was in a deluxe suite in a corporate private hospital, recuperating from the multiple injuries he had sustained in a car crash. Just when he seemed to be getting better, he acquired an HCAI (healthcare-associated infection). Who was responsible for this? The doctors, the hospital staff, or his relatives? Can Information Therapy prevent such incidents from occurring? What is patient safety? Hippocrates, the father of medicine, exhorted doctors to ensure that their patients did not suffer unnecessarily and his dictum, ‘First, Do No Harm’ (Primum non nocere), has been the guiding principle for doctors worldwide. Medicine in those days was empiric and literally a ‘hit and trial’ affair, which is why such a caution was needed. With the recent dramatic advances in science and technology, most people naively assume that although modern medicine cannot cure everything, it must be much safer. Whilst they would be 52 ● Using Information Therapy