New Jersey Citizens Fear the State's Healthcare System

Last week was National Patient Safety Awareness Week and to punctuate concerns, the AARP issued a report on a poll taken in New Jersey. Half of New Jersey's residents believe the state's healthcare system has major problems. And 20% feels like the problems are of crisis proportion.

I'm more than willing to suggest that New Jersey is not at all unusual. I'd go so far as to say that those statistics may even be conservative compared to some other states. Don't forget, the majority of pharmaceutical companies are located in New Jersey. As my daughter describes it, their employees spend their lives "drinking out of the company Kool-aid." In other words, they may be unwilling to diss the hand that feeds them.

What do those folks in New Jersey fear? The very things discussed on this blog last week: MRSA and other Hospital Acquired Infections, surgical errors, drug errors in hosptitals, other facilities, or at home, even criminal activity among healthcare providers.

One of the problems with the current system, whether its in New Jersey or anywhere else, is that there is little or no transparency. Transparency, when used in a healthcare setting, refers to exposure -- the exposure of information that can help patients or other participants in healthcare, make the decisions that need to be made.

With lack of transparency -- without real knowledge of the medical errors that do take place (or the horrendously high cost of healthcare) -- we patients assume the worst. Sadly, even if there was transparency, we probably wouldn't be too far off.

For now, we wise patients need to protect ourselves by asking questions. Need surgery? Ask the surgeon how many times she has performed a specific procedure. Need to be hospitalized? Ask the hospital how many of their surgical patients leave their hospital infected with something they acquired while in the hospital. Then ask them if those patients left alive, or dead. Seriously.

Many states are working on improving reporting structures so we patients will have better information to use as we make these important, potentially life-saving decisions. You can support those efforts by contacting your state legislators and telling them what you think.