Engaging Patients and Families in Root Cause Analysis of Sentinel Healthcare Events: The Story of Justin Micalizzi
Working with two patient advocates, the Reliability Center has released a webcast that analyzes the sudden, unexpected death in January 2001 of 11-year-old Justin Micalizzi immediately following surgery for an infected ankle. For 10 years, the Micalizzi family—especially his mother, Dale, now a well known patient safety advocate—sought unsuccessfully and without the cooperation of the hospital to discover what caused Justin’s death or at least to elicit a clear and honest pledge that the hospital would commit sincerely to understanding what had happened. The webcast includes information Dale received in 2011 from a clinician involved in Justin’s care, which begins to answer the Micalizzi’s questions.
For background on Justin’s story, please see an article titled, A Family’s Search for Truth, published in PSQH in 2006.
Faculty for the webcast include Justin’s mother, Dale Ann Micalizzi, founder and director of Justin’s HOPE Project at The Task Force for Global Health; Tricia Pil, MD, medical director for quality and safety at Children’s Community Pediatrics in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Robert Latino, CEO of Reliability Center, Inc.