About PPAHS

The mission of PPAHS is to improve patient safety by reducing adverse events and malpractice claims through the application of currently available knowledge and technology. We believe that patient safety is healthcare’s ultimate win-win:

• Patients suffer from fewer adverse events and consequently get better care. 
• Clinicians and hospitals experience fewer malpractice claims and can devote all of their attention to practicing medicine.

PPAHS By the Numbers

• As of September 2020, PPAHS was ranked internationally as a top-250 as a patient safety authority.
• PPAHS receives more than 5,000 views per day (as of Oct 13, 2020).
• Our YouTube channel has more than 720,000 views of our educational videos and podcasts.
• As of September 1, 2020, more than 3,200 follow us on Twitter and about 30,000 follow us by email.

PPAHS Key Initiatives

PPAHS is engaged in the following key initiatives for improving patient safety and health outcomes (please click on the links below to learn more about each initiative):

• Alarm Management (noise fatigue)
• Venous Thromboembolism (blood clots)
• Opioid Safety (pain management)

Inspiration and Individuals Behind PPAHS

PPAHS and this website is inspired by Howard Snitzer, who survived 96 minutes without a heart beat. Howard’s resuscitation by volunteer paramedics and Dr Roger White at the Mayo Clinic is a truly remarkable story. Moreover, as Howard says, he owes this “fifth shot at living well” to the capnograph which encouraged his rescuers to continue their efforts and, of course, to their persistence and never-give-up attitude.

Mike Wong built this free WordPress site (yes, free! — thank you, WordPress!).  A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, he is currently on the editorial board of the Journal of Patient Compliance, a peer-reviewed journal devoted to improving patient adherence (i.e. getting patients to take their medications as prescribed by their physicians). According to the New England Healthcare Institute, the problem of non-adherence costs as much as $290 billion annually in extra doctor visits, extra hospital admissions, extra emergency room visits, extra prescriptions … and, of course, poorer patient health … all caused by non-adherence.

Mike has been involved in a number of healthcare issues affecting patients and their friends and families — including encouraging smokers to quit in community-driven initiatives, helping pain patients receive physician-recommended treatments, and raising awareness about the dangers of hepatitis B in the Asian American community.

PPAHS very much appreciates the assistance from our board of advisors for helping us with our three key initiatives to improve patient safety and health outcomes — alarm fatigue, blood clots, and patient monitoring.

There is passion and a desire to improve patient safety and health outcomes through technology like capnography that helped save Howard, and more knowledge and expertise like that of Bruce Goodman and Dr Roger White at the Mayo Clinic.

Hopefully, there will be more cases like Howard’s and fewer instances like that of Carly Ann Pritchard. (Ms Pritchard suffered an ankle injury and then underwent surgery to reduce lingering pain from her ankle injury. Unfortunately, although she survived surgery, she suffered brain damage because of an accidental overdose from a morphine-filled pain pump — after surgery. A California appeals court recently upheld a jury’s award of about $9.9 million in damages.)