Patient Safety and Our Appearance at ACOG
“What does Veritech do?” I’m frequently asked this question and find that the answer isn’t always as simple as I, or the inquisitor, would like it to be. At our core, we’re a multimedia company, but to end there doesn’t do justice to the work we do. So instead of trying to explain what we do, perhaps talking about where I spent my Saturday would help.
“More people die each year from medical errors than they do from car accidents or breast cancer.” This harsh statistic was delivered by the moderator of the patient safety panel discussion at the American College of Obstetrician and Gynecologists (NY Region) conference in New York City Steve Graziano and I attened on Saturday. While neither of us are doctors, we were invited to participate on the panel because Veritech has been playing a role the last several years in helping to reduce medical errors in hospitals. We produce interactive clinician training and education programs, usually in conjunction with a hospital or learning instituion. For the ACOG meeting, we presented our program on Shoulder Dystocia, a continuing medical education credit-eligible program we co-license with Baystate Health Systems.
With shoulder dystocia — which occurs when the infant’s shoulders do not deliver easily despite the mother’s bearing down efforts, uterine contractions and gentle traction to the fetal head provided by the birth attendant – if the doctor or nurse can quickly recognize the signs and perform the appropriate maneuvers, they can avoid causing life-altering nerve damage to the baby. Our Shoulder Dystocia program is being used by OB/GYN deparments to train personnel in order quickly recognize the signs and eliminate errors associated with a shoulder dystocia in any delivery situation. In addition, it is being offered by malpractice insurance companies to their insureds as a way to reduce malpractice cost and exposure.
So do we do multimedia production? Sure. But with an interactive program like Shoulder Dystocia, with the abilty to train and certify clinicians so that a life-altering medical error can be eliminated completely, I like to think we do a little more than just make videos.
To see a sample of the program, visit our portfolio page on the Veritech Corporation Website.
Peace,
Dave
Here’s a little video of Steve preparing for the presentation:
Tags: ACOG, interactive program, medical errors, Patient safety