Paediatric surgeons and an intensive care team at a top children’s hospital in London, who successfully used the analogy of a Formula 1 pit stop (with McLaren and Ferrari) to improve the safety of critically ill children and infants, are behind an international lifesaving collaborative involving professionals from various safety critical industries and sports.
A conference involving the major players in the various safety fields will be held at the Pavilion at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town on March 29 and 30 to determine which lessons garnered in the risky business of saving lives can be translated to medicine to improve patient safety.
Professor Andrew Argent, Medical Director, Paediatric Intensive Care at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town and chairman of the Risky Business conference, said the initiative started in the early 2000’s when a paediatric cardiac surgical team along with an intensive care team from Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital (GOSH) in London looked at ways in which to improve the safety and efficiency of the handover of critically ill infants and children from the operating theatre to the intensive care team after complex heart surgery.
By using a pit stop analogy, it became apparent that there was a huge opportunity for surgeons and intensive care professions to learn from other safety critical industries and sport. Following the success of the initial study, GOSH and the Royal College of Surgeons in England arranged a series of international conferences called Everybody’s Business/Risky Business.
According to Argent the first gathering was so successful that an expanding collaborative evolved over the next three years.
He added: “Eight Risky Business conferences have been held around the world: three in London, two at Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, the Children’s Hospitals of Boston, the Children’s Hospitals of Philadelphia, and Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center, Sick Kids in Toronto, Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Dublin and the School of Child Health in Chandigarh. Also involved have been the London Fire Brigade, The CO19 London Police Unit, The London Helicopter Emergency Ambulance Service, the Clinical Human Factors Group and The British Medical Journal.
This is the first time that A “Risky Business” conference will be held in South Africa. It was arranged with the cooperation of Dr Allan Goldman, Director, Cardiothoracic Services Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in Britain.
Argent said the theme of the conference was to learn from the “defining or sentinel moment” in other high risk industries and to determine which of these lessons could be translated to medicine to improve patient safety.
“I believe that this meeting will open new opportunities and be a catalyst for change in the risky business that is healthcare,” Argent added.
Issues on the agenda are wide ranging and include virtually every aspect of patient safety, from accidents at air shows to attitudes and skills of health care leaders.
Among the many delegates who will attend are Millard Arnold, lawyer and executive director of Murray & Roberts, South Africa, Rik De Decker, Paediatric Cardiologist at Red Cross and a member of the Western Cape Mountain Rescue Service, Norman Faull, Professor at the Graduate School of Business
University of Cape Town, Arthur Gillis, CEO Protea Hotel Group, Gerald Hickson, Centre for Patient and Professional Advocacy Vanderbilt University, USA, Andrew Ingram, NSRI Marketing Manager, South Africa, Marian Jacobs, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Tim Noakes, head of the Institute for Sports Science, University of Cape Town, Mark O’Brien, Director of Cognitive Institute, Medical Protection Society, Australia, Dick Tibboel, Sophia Children’s Hospital, Netherlands, Stuart Whittaker, CEO The Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa – COHSASA, Gerhard Fahnenbruck, Clinical Director, Stiftung Mayday, Critical Incident Stress Management in Germany and Dr Lungi Linda, CEO Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital
