Sorrel King's mission: Push for safety in hospitals
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Sorrel King founder of the Josie King Foundation. -
Sorrel King and her daughter, Josie, who was 18 months old when she died due to medical error at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
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Sorrel King, 46, of Baltimore began campaigning for patient safety after her 18-month-old daughter Josie died because of medical errors on Feb. 22, 2001. She returns again to Pittsburgh to talk about the mistakes that led to Josie's death and her mission at West Penn Hospital's Conference Center at noon Thursday.
A total of 248 people from the West Penn Allegheny Health System and Highmark have registered for her presentation, enough to fill both the auditorium and an overflow room. For those who cannot attend, Ms. King answered questions about her foundation and its work.
Q: It's been 10 years since Josie died. How old is the Josie King Foundation?
A: The Josie King Foundation was formed when she died. It was formed after we signed the settlement papers. We said we don't want this money ... We don't want to let anyone off the hook. Our lawyer said you should take money and do something good with the money, and that's when the light bulb went off in our heads.
Q: Has your campaign for patient safety progressed during that time?
A: Hugely. Yes, it has.
Q: Have there been any particular achievements by you and the foundation of which you are proud or feel you've made a difference?
A: Yes, a few I will mention. The main thing I've been able to do is I've been able to stand in front of hundreds and thousands of health care providers, doctors, nurses, CEO's and talk to them about patient safety, breakdowns in communications, and just the need to change the culture, the need to improve teamwork between doctors and nurses, the tremendous importance of doctors and nurses communicating and listening to patients and their families. That's sort of the overall things we've achieved.
Along those lines we've created programs, family activated rapid response teams, and these programs are at hospitals around the country. The Care Journal program campaign has been a hit with hospitals around the country [that] have partnered with that. I wrote a book called "Josie's Story," and that book is about medical errors and Josie's story, and that book is being used in medical schools and nursing schools and being used as sort of an educational tool. So [we've done] lots of things.
First Published September 26, 2011 12:00 am
