PLACE :The Plainsman Restaurant                                  TIME: 6:00 PM - Cocktails
Highway 5                                                                                            7:00PM-Dinner
Dundas, Ontario                                                                                 8:00PM-Presentation
                                                                                                        

Note : The Plainsman Restaurant on Hwy5, 2 miles West of Highway 6 in Dundas, Ontario has been arranged as the permanent dinner meeting location of the Sec 0400 for the 2003 / 2004 session. Charge for the dinner and the presentation is currently $25.00, with a cash bar. There is no charge for only the presentation.

The January membership meeting will present Doctor Harold Richardson, B.Sc., M.B.B.S., M.D., F.C.C.M., F.R.C.P.C. - Managing Director of the Quality Management Program — Laboratory Services of the Ontario Medical Association. Dr. Richard will be speaking on "HOW SAFE IS YOUR HEALTH CARE?".

In 1998 Dr. Richardson retired from the Faculty of Health Sciences of McMaster University and was named as Professor emeritus in the Department of Pathology. He was granted his science degree with First Class Honours in Physiology by the University of Durham, England in 1959 and his medical degree in 1962. Dr. Richardson completed his postgraduate training at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England and was granted his research-based doctorate in 1969. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, in the specialty of Medical Microbiology, in 1972. and was named a Fellow of the Canadian College of Microbiology in 2000.

He has served on many provincial, national and international committees. He is one of four Canadian Delegates to the International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee (ISO TC/212) dealing with Medical Laboratory Testing and In vitro Diagnostic Test Systems. He is Vice-Chair of the CSA Technical Committee "The National Committee for Medical Laboratory Quality Systems".

Adverse outcomes resulting from health care are common. A recent study reported that 35 percent of doctors saw errors in their own health care or that of a family member. There is no absolute standard of care – errors can be expected. The standard is what other health care workers with similar training and experience would have done in similar circumstances. Most serious medical errors are committed by competent, caring people. How then can we increase patient safety to the level that the public is coming to expect?

The Institute of Medicine studies in the USA suggested that up to 100 patients per day in US hospitals die each day because of injuries from their care not from their diseases. As Tom Nolan identified there are three essential preconditions for improvement of anything: will, ideas, and execution. In Canada, the barrier to improving patient safety is execution. The system is complex, dynamic and characterized by many competing pressures particularly between funding and quality of care. A non-profit Canadian Patient Safety Institute is proposed to implement the 19 recommendations of the National Steering Committee on Patient Safety.

Bob Mok, CQA., CQE

Section Secretary, Sec 0400