“I am such a strong believer in that strong relationship between a primary care physician or a nurse practitioner and the patient, and really asking those hard questions,” says Anderson, who is a primary care doctor. “I just cringe at physicians who aren’t willing to talk and really answer patients’ questions.”

Anderson advocates bringing a friend or family member along when a patient is at the hospital.

“It’s sad to say that you need an advocate but things happen in hospitals and you want to make sure you hold nurses and doctors accountable,” he says.

“We need to wash our hands. We need to clean our stethoscopes. We need to protect patients and we should not be afraid to have patients observe and hold us accountable when we don’t do that.”

“One bad event”

TMC reports its most serious preventable medical errors to its board of directors, but the information is not public. It does not report them to any other entity.

“One bad event would taint the hospital with all the good things that we do well. … Sometimes looking at isolated incidents makes great headlines but does not always make it easy for patients (to decide) where to go for medical care,” Anderson says.