Sidney Awards Cost of Poor Quality – Healthcare

Op-Ed. The Sidney Awards, By DAVID BROOKS, Published: December 25, 2009

Every year, I give out Sidney Awards to the best magazine essays of the year. In an age of zipless, electronic media, the idea is to celebrate (and provide online linkof poor quality:d “cost es to) long-form articles that have narrative drive and social impact.

One of the awards includes a medical related “cost  of poor quality” story, e.g.,How American Health Care Killed My Father, by David Goldhill. Note reference to the 100,000 deaths refers to common cause variation.

My dad became a statistic—merely one of the roughly 100,000 Americans whose deaths are caused or influenced by infections picked up in hospitals. One hundred thousand deaths: more than double the number of people killed in car crashes, five times the number killed in homicides, 20 times the total number of our armed forces killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another victim in a building American tragedy.