A Pledge to Advance Medical Technology

The PSMF Initiative

The momentum of the PSMF is very encouraging. Initially a USA initiative but increasingly becoming a global movement with several thousand hospitals committed to action their APSS (actionable patient safety solutions).

Perhaps the most interesting fact about the PSMF is its composition. It isn’t purely a clinical movement. It recognises the role the industry, media and others have to play in achieving its goal of zero preventable deaths by 2020. Membership reflects this as did the time given to representatives from all these fields.

At the meeting held in Dana Point, California, over the weekend were keynote speakers President Bill Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, Thomas Zeltner, former Secretary of Health of Switzerland and Director-General of the Swiss National Health Authority, and currently special envoy for the Director General of the World Health Organisation.

Also speaking and/or participating in panel discussions were a strong British contingent from the Guardians health editor through to UK Secretary of State for health, Jeremy Hunt. Also present, and pledging the commitment of the organisation he heads, was the NHS national director of Patient Safety at NHS Improvement Dr. Mike Durkin.

Jeremy Hunt suggested that the Movement hosts its first international conference in London. I was encouraged to hear from him that later this year in the UK laws are planned to make it safer for clinicians to fully disclose errors without fearing personal reproach, similar to the aviation industry, and hospitals will have to report quarterly on ‘avoidable deaths’ (where there was a >50% chance that different action could have prevented death). Patients will also be given the right to access their patient records online and potentially share their data with providers of healthcare apps to help them manage long term conditions.