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Letter to Hydraulic Fluid Facts Web site visitors, November 2005

A message welcoming site visitors to hydraulicfluidfacts.dukehealth.org from Dr. Michael Cuffe, vice president for medical affairs at Duke University Health System.

Dear site visitors,

A year has passed since surgical instruments were inadvertently exposed to hydraulic fluid, and we want to take this opportunity to communicate again with our patients who were involved in this unfortunate incident. This event was unexpected and we have learned much. Our patients are important to us and we have undertaken extensive efforts to improve our processes and our awareness of patient concerns. We do regret the deep concern that some patients have experienced. Our interest has always been the welfare of our patients. We have critically examined many of our internal processes in an effort to improve the safety of our patients and to prevent an incident such as this from ever happening in the future.

We’ve worked hard with all our employees to ensure that patient safety is a top priority for each one of us who works at Duke, whether on the loading dock, in sterile processing, or in direct patient care areas. We’re encouraging every employee to speak up with concerns about safety and making sure that their concerns are heard. We’ve established a Patient Advocacy Board to help us be sure we’re communicating closely with all of our patients across the Health System.

We recognize that some of our patients continue to have concerns related to their health and we encourage them to call the hotline (919-286-3232, extension 223) to speak to our experts in toxicology or to make an appointment to be seen at our clinic. The hotline remains open and ready to take calls from any patients who have ongoing concerns.

Our intent through all these efforts is to continually improve the delivery of high-quality, patient focused care that our patients expect of us. We must acknowledge that we cannot change the past, but together, we can indeed make a better future. Again, we regret the concerns that some of our patients have experienced.

Sincerely,

Michael Cuffe, MD
Vice President for Medical Affairs
Duke University Health System

November 2005