Dr. Paul Uhlig and Improving Patient Safety

Wednesday morning at a provincial patient safety conference, Dr. Paul Uhlig spoke eloquently of the changes which are needed to achieve greater patient safety and to reduce medical errors.

He spoke of the importance of high performance teams to deliver health care. He spoke of the fundamental challenge to change the organizational structure of health care and the need to move away from a hierarchical system toward a system where front line collaborative teams play the most critical role.

Dr. Uhlig provided the details of his own efforts and his own experience as a cardiothoracic surgeon. He showed very clearly that the change from a traditional hierarchical system to a collaborative front line team system in his hospital in Concord Massachussetts was associated with a dramatic reduction in mortality from cardiovascular surgery.