Speakers

Christopher Jerry lost his beautiful two-year-old daughter, Emily, after a fatal medication error in March of 2006. After the tragic loss, he created The Emily Jerry Foundation to increase public awareness of the systems aspects of medicine, as well as, addressing key patient safety related issues by identifying technology and best practices that are proven to minimize the “human error” component of medicine. Mr. Jerry is a relentless patient safety and caregiver advocate who spreads a message of hope, change, forgiveness, compassion, collaboration, and how to turn a tragedy into honoring Emily by inspiring positive change in our nation’s medical facilities.

When Mr. Jerry first joined the patient safety movement, shortly after his daughter’s death, he was simply advocating for the patient. In the past seven years he has learned much about patient safety and the “human error” component of medicine. Over time he has discovered that most all of these issues relating to patient safety are systems related and that in order to effectively make our nation’s medical facilities safer for everyone, we all need to join together to positively change the underlying “culture” of medicine in the United States. With that being said, he is now finding himself advocating just as passionately for the caregiver as well.

“The Emily Jerry Story – From Tragedy to Triumph”

The following are the CE learning objectives for my presentation:

• Discuss the events surrounding the medical error that resulted in Emily Jerry’s tragic death in 2006.
• Describe the “lessons learned” from Emily’s tragic death.
• Identify and discuss the qualities of a safety culture that enhance harm prevention.