For example, here are some good questions we recently received from Wisconsin:

1) What barriers, if any, did you experience from physicians and staff when implementing Condition H? How did you overcome them?

2) How do the nurses and medical staff react when the family or patient calls Condition H? Were there any feelings of guilt (i.e., "I failed the patient") or resentment? What resources are available for staff to debrief after a Condition H call?

3) How many calls do you get from patients or families per month? How many have been appropriate vs. inappropriate?

4) How willing were the physicians to do this? If there were any negative attitudes, how were they overcome?

5) If you have both staff-activated rapid response teams and patient- and family-activated rapid response teams, are the teams the same or do you have unique teams for both?

Are there any Condition H veterans out there who would be open to talking to colleagues in the early stages of implementation?

If you are interested, I encourage you to post below or email me at awesol@josieking.org to volunteer.

I will also set up a discussion page on our forum "Connecting with Others". Click here to enter the forum.

From September 2005 to August 2007, there were 42 calls to Condition H. All of the calls were instigated by breakdowns in communication between caregivers and the patient or the patient's family. As the patient safety movement continues to make great strides and develop new techniques to prevent medical errors, it's clear that basic communication skills remain key resources for both caregivers and patients.

These and other successes are discussed in detail in the May/June 2008 issue of the Journal of Healthcare Quality.

As a Condition H partner, we at the Josie King Foundation are so proud of their success and hope that their impressive results inspire even more hospitals to implement Condition H. As a healthcare consumer, I'm relieved to know that more and more fellow patients have access to these rapid response teams.

Condition H consistently ranks among the top of the inquiries that we receive. It's encouraging to hear from so many institutions in varying stages of implementing patient- and family-activated rapid response teams of their own. For those of you who are associated with hospitals that have active programs, consider sharing any successes or lessons from your experience that could help your patient safety colleagues.

If you are in the early stages of planning, or are just considering starting a similar program at your institution, you can find helpful information on our website. Background material on Condition H is available here. This page also contains program support materials developed by UPMC for their program, like educational brochures and evaluation tools. These materials are all available for download, for you to learn from, amend and use at your institution. Big thanks to our friends at UPMC for sharing their good work with the community.

Please send us your questions and share your stories by leaving a comment below or emailing me at awesol@josieking.org.

Thanks, and more soon,

Andrea

This is where I enter the picture.

My name is Andrea Wesol, and I've been working with Sorrel and Tony for almost four years now. It's been a true pleasure to help them grow the Foundation and expand the scope of the work done in Josie's name. It's also been rewarding to communicate with you- the patients, families and medical professionals who write to us. I am most often the first point of human contact that most people have with the Josie King Foundation, and it's a role that I enjoy tremendously. I'll still be the one responding to your inquiries and ideas about the DVD of Sorrel's speech, Care Journals, Condition H, etc., so keep those emails coming. I do look forward to having the new medium of the blog to interact with you and generate public discussions about the patient safety topics that make this work so interesting.

Fear not- Sorrel will still be contributing to the JKF Blog. For you sports fans out there, think of me as the play by play announcer, and Sorrel as providing color commentary.

You can expect to find more frequent blog posts, so please bookmark this site and come back regularly to check out or contribute to the conversations. I encourage you to leave comments and questions about the blog after each entry, and you can always email me on any patient safety topic at awesol@josieking.org.

More soon,

Andrea