A simple error in a patient's chart can lead to death. But David Bates of Harvard's Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital is working to drastically reduce the number of avoidable medical errors that happen every day.
On Friday, Bates gave a lecture at the Nursing School on the different systems he has developed in order to keep better track of patients' conditions and the administration of their drugs by implementing computerized medical filing.
He proposed that if more hospitals and doctor's offices were to use computer filing, millions of dollars -- and lives -- each year could be saved.
Dean of the Nursing School Afaf Meleis began the lecture, which is the first in the Dean's Lecture Series, with the hope that each guest will "challenge us and excite us."
The diverse audience of about 30 people included faculty members, students and nurses.
Mark Weiner, a Penn faculty member, said he knew Bates from the many boards they serve on together.
"Dr. Bates is at the forefront of research on medical error reduction and computer systems as a tool to improve care," Weiner said, adding, "I'm interested in his new impressions regarding research and policy into medical error reduction."
Graduate Nursing student Emily McGee was excited to hear Dr. Bates' lecture, because she wrote her senior inquiry for nursing school on the effects of computerizing patient information.
"Dr. Bates is one of the leading, if not the leading, researcher on" medical error reduction, McGee said.
Bates' lecture, which lasted under an hour, described the various systems that could be implemented to reduce patient errors.
These techniques included computerizing prescriptions, which would provide early allergy detection. Additionally, he advocated using a "smart pump" -- a system which gives patients their medicine and immediately alerts the nurses and doctors if there is a complication.
Speaking to the Nursing School, Bates stressed the importance of nurses throughout the country, because they usually respond to emergencies first within the hospital system.
"We really need to have a stronger presence in the health care profession as nurses," said Victoria Rich, HUP's chief nursing officer.
Bates integrated humor into his lecture, using a Dilbert comic where the doctor mixes up Dilbert's chart and tells him, "By the way, your pap smear results were normal."
The lecture ended on a humorous note with Bates saying, "We don't have a nursing school at Harvard. I wish we did."
Meleis responded from the audience, "It's OK, we have one here at Penn."
