CRICO/RMF Strategies Releases “Healing the Healer” Film
Groundbreaking film offers a unique perspective of the impact adverse medical events has on clinicians.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 11, 2010 — CRICO/RMF Strategies, leading an innovative national effort to use malpractice data to help healthcare organizations reduce medical errors and enhance patient safety, announced the release of its latest film, entitled “Healing the Healer.” The new documentary examines medical error from a heretofore unreported perspective: the profound effect on clinicians when one of their patients experiences a tragic outcome. The film, which is available on DVD, uses poignant testimonials to explore how the emotional impact of these events threatens caregivers. The documentary also examines ways to assist these clinicians in regaining their ability to provide the highest-quality care for their future patients.
The DVD also features several compelling case studies on innovative hospital programs designed to help clinicians “heal” from these adverse events. The University of Missouri Hospital’s “forYOU Peer Support Team” program and Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s “Center for Professionalism and Peer Support” initiative are two such case studies that illustrate successful approaches to helping clinicians cope with and recover from tragic medical errors.
“This documentary is another example of CRICO/RMF Strategies’ commitment to educating the industry on areas of vulnerabilities in medical practices through unique and innovative materials,” said Robert Hanscom, Vice President of CRICO/RMF Strategies. “Through our data-driven intelligence, we have found that hospitals need to address the emotional impact on clinicians who have been involved in an adverse event affecting one of their patients. Whether triggered by a medical error, a surgical complication, or the natural course of a disease, these clinicians need their own support in the aftermath to ensure they are able to continue to provide the highest quality of care. To help raise awareness on behalf of these providers, we felt compelled to develop this ground-breaking documentary to bring a previously unspoken issue to the attention of healthcare administrators.”
“Emotional ‘wholeness’ of a physician has a direct link to quality patient care,” stated Jo Shapiro, MD at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “We established the Peer Support program so that the clinicians involved in an adverse event would have immediate access to a place where they would be safe to process their emotions from such an event. We piloted this first for operating room personnel; whenever there is an adverse medical event, the Peer Support team goes into action by inviting anyone affected by the event to a facilitated group meeting. In addition to making this available to the entire institution, we have also trained selected physicians to provide 1:1 peer support for their colleagues. BWH leadership feels that it’s our responsibility to support our clinicians, especially during the most difficult moments of their professional lives. In this way we can help ensure that healthcare providers are at the top of their game for tomorrow’s patient.”
“Healing the Healer” is a powerful follow-up to CRICO/RMF Strategies’ earlier documentary, entitled “When Things Go Wrong: Voices of Patients and Families,” which focuses on training healthcare providers to look at medical errors from the patient’s perspective.
As a part of its focus on advancing the patient safety agenda, CRICO/RMF Strategies is continually building an educational toolkit for healthcare providers. This includes convening healthcare professionals — such as OB Chiefs, Surgical Chiefs or ED Chiefs — to discuss patient safety initiatives; developing films that reflect a national representation of both patient and physician experiences with medical error; providing quantitative data and best practices drawn from its client base of well-renowned academic medical centers, including over 400 hospitals and 40,000 physicians; and offering free patient safety information available to all interested parties at http://www.rmfstrategies.com/effectivesolutions/educationandtraining/.
The film is available within the Harvard medical community and to the broader patient safety community established through CRICO/RMF Strategies. To order a copy of the DVD visit the CRICO/RMF web site: www.rmf.harvard.edu/healingthehealer.
CRICO/RMF Strategies is an innovator that uses medical malpractice data to help hospitals across the nation dramatically reduce medical errors and minimize financial loss. Based on more than 30 years experience from the Harvard medical community, CRICO/RMF Strategies offers proven methodologies and data-driven insights that reveal hidden areas of risk and deliver actionable intelligence to drive fundamental change that transforms the safety of patient care. The company spearheads a number of leadership initiatives designed to educate and bring the healthcare industry together to improve patient safety. CRICO/RMF Strategies is an operating division of CRICO/RMF, the patient safety and medical malpractice company owned by and serving the Harvard medical community since 1976. For more information, visit www.rmfstrategies.com.