2007-10-11-PAMF

Followed up on the (delayed) interaction with PAMF (Sutter Health Network). I have also followed up on the correspondence with the Mayo Clinic as I haven't heard back from them.

Thank you for your response.

Between work, family and actually ending up in your urgent care (my complements on the excellent service I received), my response was also delayed.

Manley, Theresa wrote:

> I am the Patient Safety Officer for the Palo Alto
> Division of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and have been asked to
> reply to your email request for information. We do not currently use
> metric exclusively. We have not developed any formal plans for
> exclusively using the metric system in our facilities.

From what I can see, the patient interface seems to be completely in US customary and there are issues with patients who prefer metric (forms which assume customary amongst other things). I also noticed that your facilities, use a seemingly random mix of metric and customary.

As I pointed out in my initial mail, the Mayo Clinic went metric exclusively so that errors converting between the two systems could be removed. No more mix ups between division or multiplication to get to kg for calculating dosage based on mg per kg of body mass or the infamous "give your child 1 teaspoon" turning into a kitchen spoon with a random size between 3ml and 9ml which can lead to overdose and a corresponding trip to the emergency room.

Obviously, there are many benefits to going completely metric in your facilities. Has the status of the plans in this direction changed since our last interaction?

If not, how can I help Sutter Health start such a program?

> I will send your information to the Physician who is heading
> up that project, as well as bring this up for discussion with our
> Patient Safety Council.

I was hoping to hear back from this Physician and continue the conversation with them but I haven't. How did the Patient Safety Council discussion go?

> We do use an electronic health record which calculates the BMI
> automatically.

Automatically calculated is easy in the consulting rooms, but that's different from making it easy for patients to calculate their own at home and do so without having to memorize the (from the patients perspective random) number to convert from metric to customary.

Thank you,
Paul