On March 23 at the Kaiser Family Foundation Barbara Jordan Conference Center in Washington, D.C., ProPublica will host a convening of doctors, patient safety advocates and other health care professionals for an exchange of ideas on the enduring problem of patient harm, access to data on individual doctors, and ways to improve health care quality. Entitled “ProPublica Live: A Conversation on Transparency and Patient Safety,” the free event will feature key thought leaders with diverse views on these issues.
WHAT: ProPublica Live: A Conversation on Transparency and Patient Safety
WHEN: Wednesday, March 23 from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. (Continental Breakfast at 9:30 | Discussion begins at 10 a.m.)
WHERE: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Barbara Jordan Conference Center, 1330 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20005
WHO:
- Nancy Foster, American Hospital Association VP for Quality and Patient Safety
- Mark Friedberg, RAND senior natural scientist and Harvard assistant professor
- Ashish Jha, Harvard School of Public Health researcher
- Martin Makary, Johns Hopkins professor of surgery and public health
- Olga Pierce, ProPublica deputy data editor
- Scott Hensley, writer/editor for NPR health blog Shots (moderator)
Last year ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to investigative journalism, opened a new frontier in the examination of patient safety. Knowing that patient harm (estimated as the third-leading cause of death in the United States) happens far too often, ProPublica data journalists sought greater transparency by launching the Surgeon Scorecard news application.
The searchable tool publicly reports the complication rates for nearly 17,000 surgeons, by name and by the hospital where they practice. For the first time, Surgeon Scorecard lets patients weigh the track records of doctors on common elective procedures. And for disclosing what most hospitals will not, it has sparked considerable debate in the medical community. Some have welcomed it as a much-needed step toward greater accountability and patient empowerment. Other medical professionals have been harshly critical, pointing to limitations in the data and what they view as flaws in the analysis.
For more information on this event, contact Cynthia Gordy, marketing director, at [email protected] or 917-703-1242.
