The AdvoKayte Podcast: Holding Healthcare Accountable

Summary (57m 53s).
Episode 8: Dr. Death Wasn’t a Fluke:
Lisa McGiffert on Medical Board Failures.

There are a lot more people working to bring changes to our healthcare system than most of us know about. Most fight their own battles at a local level. Others join groups that work for systemic changes. A very rare few become national leaders, and even fewer lead campaigns founded and backed by the consumer advocacy organization Consumer Reports.

Lisa McGiffert is one of three leaders of the non-profit Patient Safety Action Network (PSAN) and a former director of the Consumers Union Safe Patient Project. Founded by Consumer Reports, both projects estimate 8.8 million patients are harmed in American hospitals each year with up to 448,000 of those losing their lives due to medical errors.

In her 27 years working with Consumer Reports, Lisa has researched and advocated for numerous changes to how healthcare is delivered and how practitioners and institutions should be held accountable. She shares several of those stories as a way of showing how much effort from so many people at so many levels goes into working to protect patients. 

Lisa has led several working groups looking at physician accountability, medical device safety, patient safety, and bringing more transparency about medical harm and accountability. She talks about the work and research her organization and other patient advocacy groups do to try to bring change to a system that often seems more driven by profit and self-interest than by an interest in positive patient outcomes. 

Her work has also given her a front-row seat on the systemic inequity that plagues accountability systems. One example she offers is how hospitals, insurance companies, and physicians have extremely expensive and highly competent lawyers, while the legal representation afforded state medical boards is often fresh out of school and inexperienced. 

Lisa gives an interesting glimpse into what it’s like to work with a large national non-profit organization in a world of single-person activists who are generally representing themselves. Access to paid staff and resources makes an enormous difference between success and failure. She details dozens of the victories her and her organizations were able to achieve and how those successes were won. 

She also speaks openly about the many cracks in accountability systems, how they happen, and the often dire consequences of underfunding guardrails on a system that allows physicians and healthcare organizations to self-report and self-police their own misdeeds and malpractices.

Lisa McGiffert continues to research, audit, and advocate for patient safety. After nearly three decades working to bring accountability and transparency to the healthcare systems, she sees simple solutions that often get lost amongst the incredibly complex and emotional issues surrounding health, patient safety, and systemic accountability. This is an incredibly interesting and fast-paced interview that will leave listeners equally inspired by Lisa’s clarity and passion and frustrated that there aren't a lot more people like her with the resources of a nationally renowned non-profit consumer advocacy organization.