America’s intensive care units (ICUs) are supposed to showcase the lifesaving potential of modern medicine. They are equipped with the latest technology, staffed with the most skilled staff, and centered in the best hospitals. Yet statistics show that ICUs are failing miserably: One out of every five people treated in ICUs is harmed in some way (medical errors, mostly), costing the U.S. health care system an estimated $20 billion, and exacting a notable human toll.
Johns Hopkins researchers want to reverse this troubling trend. Under a $1.5 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation as well as a $300,000 grant from Florida’s All Children’s Hospital Foundation, Whiting School computer scientist Suchi Saria has launched a research program aimed at making hospitals safer.
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