Post #4038, eight years later

The eighth anniversary of this blog slipped by on August 2.  That's 4038 posts, including this one, drawing several million page views.  From time to time, I've thought about stopping, but then a whole new set of topics emerge, and I say, "Not just yet!" Thank you all, especially the regulars, for reading.

My purpose is to serve as an advocate for patient-driven care, eliminating preventable harm, fostering transparency of clinical outcomes, and encouraging front-line driven process improvement.  When I take on people who act in ways counter to those goals, I do so in the hope of stimulating discussion and, yes, putting some pressure on those people, but not with ad hominem attacks.  In contrast, when I praise people who are acting in accordance with those goals, I mean it to be very, very personal--thanking them for their leadership and, sometimes, courage.

The following compendium might or might not surprise you.  Key words in posts have included:

Quality -- 902 posts
Doctors -- 708
Patient safety -- 642
BIDMC -- 601
Harm -- 407
Nurses -- 356
Lean -- 348
Leadership -- 3222
Transparency -- 310
Residents -- 230
Institute for Healthcare Improvement -- 188
Partners Healthcare -- 158; Brigham and Women's -- 95; MGH --53;
Medical students -- 156
Soccer -- 135
Careers -- 113
Blue Cross Blue Shield -- 109
Preventable -- 108
Incentives -- 73
Infrastructure -- 70
SEIU -- 68; Corporate campaign -- 36
NHS -- 61
Global payments -- 60
Don Berwick -- 55
Robotic surgery -- 43
Ohio (especially children's hospitals) -- 41
Jim Conway -- 34
Brent James --34
University of Illinois -- 32
Telluride Patient Safety Camp -- 30
Peter Pronovost -- 27
Bob Wachter -- 25
Saskatchewan -- 21
Jeroen Bosch Hospital -- 19
Gene Lindsey -- 19
e-Patient Dave deBronkart -- 18
Proton beam -- 18
Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center -- 18
Contra Costa Regional Medical Center -- 10