Mass General's New Patient Code of Conduct & Patient Safety

Recently, Massachusetts General Hospital released a new patient code of conduct intended to crack down on offensive, discriminatory, and even abusive or violent behavior from patients and their families. Good for them. 

As much as patient safety advocates don't want to hear it, the pursuit of "excellence" and "chasing zero" in healthcare is a team effort.  And that team includes not only doctors, nurses, other clinical staff, administrators, etc, but also patients and families.  And if patients and families cannot be nice, cannot have filters with their mouths, won't follow the well-intended orders of doctors and nurses, won't fill prescriptions, and just don't take care of themselves, well, then, patient safety is going to be an impossible goal for all us to reach. 

Yes...yes...doctors and nurses need to do their part to make medicine safer, healthcare systems need to be improved, and when the inevitable mistakes or errors occur our collective healthcare system needs to get much better at saying "sorry," being accountable, fixing problems for patients and families, and learning from said mistakes.  This is the work I have done for 17+ years. I get it.  I also get that the patient safety movement is starting to adopt the same biased, cringe-worthy partisan rancor that pollutes our politics.  There is too much dumping on doctors and nurses without an introspective look at how much patients and families contribute to the patient safety crisis.  American patients and families need to do a much better job taking care of themselves and stop overwhelming our health system with a never-ending litany of chronic conditions brought on by bad living and bad choices. Overwhelmed healthcare system + tired/burned out clinicians = more medical errors.  American patients and families need to do a better job listening to their doctors and nurses, and, as Mass General says, patients and families cannot be jerks in the process.  

To contribute to this discussion, you may consider viewing Sorry Works! "Patient/Family Relationship and Disclosure Education Document."   Feel free to use and plagiarize this document, and change as you see fit.  Many healthcare organizations have adopted parts or all of this document.  In coming weeks, Sorry Works! will release a more comprehensive patient/family code of conduct blending together our document and the Mass General document.

Have a great weekend, and Happy Thanksgiving next week! 

- Doug

Doug Wojcieszak, MA, MS
Founder & President 
Sorry Works!
618-559-8168 (direct dial)
doug@sorryworks.net