About

The Challenge
‘Medication errors alone cost an estimated US$ 42 billion annually. Unsafe surgical care procedures cause complications in up to 25% of patients resulting in 1 million deaths during or immediately after surgery annually. Investment in improving patient safety can lead to significant financial savings. The cost of prevention is much lower than the cost of treatment due to harm. As an example, in the United States alone, focused safety improvements led to an estimated US$28 billion in savings in Medicare hospitals between 2010 and 2015’ (WHO, 2019).
Risk Reduction in a synergetic and collaborative approach
A number of mitigation strategies can be derived and transferred from the aviation industry. Investigations after aircraft incidents and accidents have highlighted the need for gaining a deeper understanding of human error. The results are encouraging and an overall steady decrease in fatal accidents has been achieved. In 1977 for example, 4.2 airline accidents per 1 million flights have been recorded (Aviation Safety Net, 2019). This number has been reduced to a rate of 0.25 accidents per 1 million flights in 2017, resulting in a reduced rate of approximately 94%.


About Mark Roth
Capt. Mark Roth (54) had his first appearance at a medical conference at the AO Global Spine Congress in Dubai in April 2016. From there a collaborative journey with the medical industry has taken off and evolved into various research-based activities with universities, hospitals and surgeons around the globe. Capt. Mark Roth has a keen interest to share these concepts and to train successfully proven and transferable models to medical personnel. In order to do that, a continuous exchange with collaborative researchers is taking place and empirical observations i.e. in ORs provide him regularly with insights into the manifold challenges of the medical industry. His ultimate goal is to leverage the best of both industries and to make hospitals a safer place and teams more effective.
Past and Ongoing Projects
Master Thesis
City, University of London (pdf)
Presentation Report
AO Global Spine Congress 2016 (pdf)
Congress Poster
EANS 2018 Brussels (pdf)
Report Hospital Center Biel/Bienne
Report SZB, G & F (pdf)