Insights from the Armstrong Institute
Lessons from a lifetime thinker and doer At just 7 years old, Story Musgrave faced a crisis that tested his critical thinking. While pretending to drive his father’s red farm tractor, he unlocked the brake, sending himself and the tractor down the hill into the river. He didn’t want to admit he was at fault, […]
Recently, patient safety collaborators from across the globe traveled to The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to take part in the inaugural Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality Observership. Participants arrived ready to take a deep dive with the Armstrong Institute into Johns Hopkins Medicine’s prioritized approach to patient safety. This pioneering three-day observership […]
Imagine this. You are locked in Turner Concourse for 36 hours with relative strangers, tasked with creating a project that will revolutionize health care. Now what? If you are one of this year’s MedHacks participants, you are out of the gate running, ready to innovate and transform health care. MedHacks, run by Johns Hopkins University […]
"That’s how it’s always been done" is a phrase you will not hear uttered in the Department of Radiology and Radiological Science at The Johns Hopkins Hospital or at Johns Hopkins Medical Imaging. Organizations often cite historical precedent for why “option A” is being implemented instead of trying “option B.” The radiology department has seen […]
"To know the road ahead, ask those coming back," goes an oft-quoted Chinese proverb. That’s the philosophy behind peer support programs, which help connect people who are dealing with health challenges to others who have “been there” and experienced similar problems. Peer support programs can offer hope, connection and practical advice for managing health conditions, […]
C. Michael Armstrong has long been more than the namesake of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. His commitment goes beyond making generous gifts to create the institute and, later, our Center for Diagnostic Excellence, or endowing a professorship in patient safety. Indeed, he's been part of the patient safety movement for years, […]
One night, a woman is examined in the emergency department complaining of vertigo. Her physician orders a CT scan, and when the tests come back negative, he diagnoses her with a benign inner ear condition and sends her home. He never sees her again. What he never learns is that her dizziness was far from […]
Fifteen years ago, if you wanted to carve out a career niche in patient safety, you had to be resourceful — and a tad lucky. I was a bedside nurse at Johns Hopkins then, and my manager was helping me find a track for promotion. Noting that I submitted far more adverse-event reports than anyone else, […]
- By Elliott Haut and Brandyn Lau on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Venous Thromboembolism Collaborative You pack a healthy lunch for your child, but the carrot sticks and apple come home untouched. You donate to disaster relief, but the supplies sit unused in a shipping container. You mail a birthday gift to a friend, […]
In 2009, Erlanger Health System in Chattanooga, Tenn. upended the classic "deny and defend" approach to fighting malpractice lawsuits and instituted a communication-and-resolution program. In this system, when the hospital determines that it made an error, it apologizes to the patient or family members and commits to changes to reduce the chances of similar events […]