When the diagnosis is lack of human attention.

In the Times:

Hospital accreditation committees now audit charts for outdated abbreviations and proper signing of notes. Electronic prescription systems are rapidly becoming the norm. Pay-for-performance interventions by insurers promise to reward those who make the grade and to refuse payment to those whose treatments cause complications like hospital-acquired infections…

None of these interventions, however well meant, address a fundamental problem that is emerging in modern medicine: a change in focus from treating the patient toward satisfying the system. The effects of focusing physicians’ attention on benchmarks and check boxes are not, I think, to the patient’s advantage.

This is a very good analysis. The doctor’s personal experiences make it even better.

A close family member was recently hospitalized after nearly collapsing at home. He was promptly checked in, and an electrocardiogram was done within 15 minutes. He was given a bar-coded armband, his pain level was assessed, blood was drawn, X-rays and stress tests were performed, and he was discharged 24 hours later with a revised medication list after being offered a pneumonia vaccine and an opportunity to fill out a living will.

The only problem was an utter lack of human attention. An emergency room physician admitted him to a hospital service that rapidly evaluates patients for potential heart attacks. No one noted the blood tests that suggested severe dehydration or took enough history to figure out why he might be fatigued…

As a profession, we are paying attention to the details of medical errors — to ambiguous chart abbreviations, to vaccination practices and hand-washing and many other important, or at least quantifiable, matters.

But as we bustle from one well-documented chart to the next, no one is counting whether we are still paying attention to the human beings. No one is counting whether we admit that the best source of information, the best protection from medical error, the best opportunity to make a difference — that all of these things have been here all along.

The answers are with the patients, and we must remember the unquantifiable value of asking the right questions.

Excellent diagnosis, doctor.