Tracy’s guest on this episode of Lit Health is Dr. David Mayer, Executive Director of the MedStar Institute for Quality and Safety, where he leads quality and safety programs in support of discovery and learning and the application of innovative methods to operational clinical challenges. A cardiac anesthesiologist by training and a medical educator by passion, Dave has spent the last three decades fighting for a safer healthcare delivery environment and recently served as CEO of the patient safety movement Foundation, where he led global patient safety efforts and initiatives in sixty-four countries and over 4,800 hospitals. He’s currently at work on a memoir of sorts, detailing his walk across pandemic-hit America during 2020 to keep all eyes on the continued need to make healthcare safe for patients and providers.

Dave starts the episode with the story of starting his cross-country walk and how it was inspired by his frustration with the lack of progress in healthcare safety during his thirty-year career and his desire to do something out of the ordinary to draw attention to this crisis. He then explains that the COVID-19 pandemic hit just two weeks into his walk and discusses the things that surprised him most about the country’s response, including the social unrest in many cities and the polarized reactions people had to masks (including threatening Dave for wearing one). He also points out one of the best things about his walk—being joined by patients and families who had lost loved ones to preventable medical harm—and speaks about the impact patient advocates have had on his career, as well as his realization that focusing on personal stories and narratives is necessary to help people understand the importance of healthcare safety on a human level. Next, Dave discusses his summer camp program, the Academy for Emerging Leaders in Patient Safety, its history and development, and its impact in informing and training emerging and future healthcare leaders in advocating for and implementing quality and safety concepts in their organizations. He also talks about the need to include the softer sciences, such as communication, leadership, and teamwork, in medical education and how the medical profession can learn about this from aviation and other high-risk industries. Dave then returns to his book, sharing his hope that it will help readers connect the statistics on preventable medical harm with the personal stories he’s gathered and encourage more people to take action by asking their leaders why more isn’t being done to make healthcare safe for patients and workers. And he wraps the episode up by explaining the developments he believes are necessary to improve quality and safety, including setting up a National Patient Safety Board and increasing transparency in quality and safety outcomes so that patients can make informed decisions on who provides their care.

Highlights:

• Dave’s other achievements include founding and leading the annual Telluride International Patient Safety Roundtable and the Academy for Emerging Leaders in Patient Safety Summer Camp for the last thirteen years. He also serves on numerous boards and has been recognized multiple times for his leadership and work elevating safety and quality in medicine.
• Dave also co-produced the patient safety educational film series entitled The Faces of Medical Error… From Tears to Transparency, which won numerous awards, including the prestigious Aegis Film Society Top Short Documentary Award.
• In February 2020, Dave decided to walk across the country to raise awareness about healthcare safety for both patients and healthcare workers, planning to visit major league ballparks and take in a game at each one.
• Two weeks after Dave started his walk, the pandemic hit, eventually resulting in the book he’s working on, set during the worst pandemic we’ve had in a hundred years and a year which saw...