How Quality Care And Technology Are Changing The Way We Deal With Diseases

Lessons on quality care from Neil Armstrong’s death. Focus on quality will help not only patients but hospitals, too, aiding growth and innovation

- Dr Jame Abraham

This year is the year of the moon. Apart from India’s valiant attempt to land on the moon's south pole, it is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing of the Apollo 11. As Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon, said, “That is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

The 50th anniversary celebrations brought back focus on Armstrong's death on August 25, 2012. As part of a legal settlement, details of his death were not publicly known until recently. According to a report in The New York Times on July 23, Armstrong was hospitalised for a cardiac bypass surgery. After the procedure, he was reportedly recovering well. Two days after the surgery, the family was shocked to hear that he had died unexpectedly at the hospital.

After the surgery, once the heart recovers from the bypass, removing pacemaker wires inserted into the heart is a routine procedure. Usually the wire comes off easily. But in Armstrong’s case, when a nurse tried to pull the wire, he started bleeding and his blood pressure dropped. The doctors could not save him.

As per the NYT report, multiple medical errors led to Armstrong’s death. The hospital settled the case with his family for about US$5.5 million (₹39.21 crore) and most of the details were kept confidential.

If this can happen to Armstrong, what about the rest of us? About 44,000 to 90,000 patients die in the US from medical errors, states the Institute of Medicine's report—To Err is Human. The actual global number is not clear owing to lack of proper data collection.