Believing in ZERO HARM!

And Saving the Patient Safety Revolution from the Quicksand of the «Good Enough» Zone

John J. Nance

If you’re worried about your institution’s Patient Safety Revolution hitting a wall on this 20th anniversary of the original IOM Report (To Err is Human, 1999), you’re thinking ahead, and you’re on target:  Too many healthcare institutions are seeing their hard-fought progress toward zero unnecessary harm and high quality care seriously slowed and sometimes wholly derailed by several powerful forces, and once sidetracked, it’s hard to get the train moving again. 

Despite massive, sustained efforts, statistics still validate the staggering level of harm: 440,000 wholly avoidable patient deaths annually in American Hospitals (Dr. John James; Journal of Patient Safety, 2013), and over 4-million injured.   It’s enough to make hard working, sincere healthcare leaders at all levels lose both heart and hope, which can trigger a backslide toward Cottage Industry medicine and the way we’ve always done it.

The heart of the problem, believe it or not, is a toxic assumption:  «Medicine is far too complex to ever allow complete elimination of avoidable patient harm.»  Not only is that assumption dead wrong, the very key to maintaining the Safety and Quality momentum you’ve fought so hard to achieve lies in your belief system.  As other inherently dangerous industries have realized (on their way to High Reliability), if you don’t truly believe that sustained zero harm is achievable, you’ll never even get close. 

With the rapidly growing importance of the Patient Experience as a priority centered around High Reliability status, safety and quality have now become a matter of financial survival.  Yet there is a critical aspect of High Reliability that is too often missed: High Reliability is a philosophy, not a set of tactics and strategies, and that philosophy begins and ends with a sophisticated understanding of how human systems fail, and how to build systems that safety absorb the failures that can’t be prevented.

Without the proper training and mentoring, pressured folks on the front lines (as well as their leaders) can conclude that their level of safety and quality is «good enough», which means acceptance of a certain minimal number of avoidable deaths, injuries, and near-misses from medical mistakes and human error.  To patients and families with the misfortune to fall into that zone, however, «good enough» is chillingly unforgiveable.   

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This fresh, up to date and highly useful presentation is based on the past few years of John J.

Nance’s practical research and consulting, and it will give you a current, real-world picture of the massive profession-wide challenges as well as provide immediate takeaways.  It will also reinvigorate your team’s drive, dedication, and enthusiasm by affirming the inestimable value of their contributions and showing them what they can achieve. 

John J. Nance

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One of the key thought leaders to emerge in American Healthcare in the past decade, John J. Nance brings a rich and varied professional background to the task of helping doctors, administrators, boards, and front-line staff alike survive and prosper during the most profoundly challenging upheaval in the history of modern medicine. Having helped pioneer the Renaissance in patient safety as one of the founders of the National Patient Safety Foundation in 1997, his efforts (and healthcare publications) are dedicated to reforming American Healthcare from a reactive cottage industry to an effective and safe system of prevention and wellness.  A lawyer, Air Force and airline pilot, prolific internationally-published author, national broadcaster, and renown professional speaker, John’s leadership is propelled by a deep commitment.

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As a native Texan, John grew up in Dallas where he  earned his Bachelor’s Degree and a Juris Doctor Degree from SMU, and is still a licensed Texas attorney.  Named Distinguished Alumni of SMU for 2002, and distinguish Alumni for Public Service of the SMU Dedman School of Law in 2010, he is also a decorated Air Force pilot veteran of Vietnam and Operations Desert Storm/Desert Shield and a Lt. Colonel in the USAF Reserve, well known for his pioneering development of Air Force human factors flight safety education, and one of the civilian pioneers of Crew Resource Management (CRM).  John has piloted a wide variety of jet aircraft, including most of Boeing’s line and the Air Force C-141, and has logged over 13,900 hours of flight time since earning his first pilot license in 1965, and is still a current pilot.  He was a flight officer for Braniff International Airlines and a Boeing 737 Captain for Alaska Airlines, and is an internationally recognized air safety advocate, best known to North American television audiences as Aviation Analyst for ABC World News and Aviation Editor for Good Morning America.

Before joining ABC,  John logged countless appearances on national shows such as Larry King Live, PBS Hour with Jim Lehrer, Oprah, NPR, Nova, the Today Show, and many others.  He is also the nationally-known author of 20 major books, including the acclaimed WHY HOSPITALS SHOULD FLY (2009), and, with co-author Kathleen Bartholomew, CHARTING THE COURSE (2012), plus five non-fiction: (Splash of Colors, Blind Trust, On Shaky Ground, What Goes Up and Golden Boy) and 13 international fiction bestsellers: Final Approach, Scorpion Strike; Phoenix Rising); Pandora’s Clock; Medusa’s Child; The Last Hostage; Blackout; Fire Flight; Saving Cascadia; and Orbit.  Pandora’s Clock and Medusa’s Child both aired as major, successful two-part mini-series on television.  (WHY HOSPITALS SHOULD FLY won the prestigious “Book of the Year” award for 2009 from the American College of Healthcare Executives).

John J. Nance has become one of America’s most dynamic and effective professional speakers, presenting riveting, pivotal programs on success and safety in human organizations to a wide variety of audiences, including business corporations and healthcare professionals.  Together with fellow author Kathleen Bartholomew (Charting the Course and Ending Nurse-to-Nurse Hostility — Why Nurses Eat their Young and Each Other),  the two of them are highly sought after for their watershed presentations to boards, senior leaders, physicians, nurses, and staff on Quality and Patient Safety.  He is a pioneering and well-known advocate of using the lessons from the recent revolution in aviation safety to equally revolutionize the patient safety performance of hospitals, doctors, nurses, and all of healthcare.  He lives in Friday Harbor, Washington.