Case 3: Polictical Imperatives

Political Imperatives, Take Two

Bringing about change in humanity, having awareness of human rights issues throughout the world gets to access to information and the information age. Movement from the enlightenment project, a philosophy where knowledge is gained by the impartial, objective observer to the 21^st enlightenment where the world moves to a consciousness of the empathic society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo

Human Rights, Free Speech and Freedom of Expression

What role do individual citizen journalists play in shining light on human rights abuses?

Individual Citizen journalists have the ability to bring to light issues that would not have been told otherwise. They can insight an emotional response from the population that can impact decision makers by either informing them of the existence of an issue or by causing them to respond to issues that they themselves may have created.

Here is a link to a website that is called Witness. Witness uses video to open the eyes to the world about human rights violations.

http://www.witness.org/index.html

Here is an example of a video campaign that was used to bring light to an incident that happened in Oakland California

http://hub.witness.org/oscar-grant

In what ways are citizen bloggers challenging mainstream media in creating awareness about social and political issues?

They are presenting a view that is different than that of the mainstream media as they are not filtered by anyone, nor do they have any limitations in terms of the information that they share. On the other hand, there is no one validating the information. A lot of the information is personal in nature with regards to opinions the lens through which they present the information.

  

Political Imperatives and Education

After reading the chapter on Political Imperatives, specifically the disaster that happened at Wakerton Ontario I was very intrigued by the information that Vicente presented by Jens Rasmussen. Rasmussen created a two part framework that aims to help explain both how accidents occur and how they can be prevented. (Vicente, 2004, p. 271). A couple of questions arise for me as I try and apply this to education. What would an accident in education look like and how can we use this framework to help prevent it?

To begin I thought that it would be interesting to apply his first figure, one which outlines the levels of a complex technological system involved in risk management to the political landscape of education here in Alberta.

Public Opinion-->	Minister of Education	<--Changing Political Climate and Public awareness
	Alberta Learning
	Local Board of Education	<--Changing Market conditions and financial pressures
	Principal and School leadership
	Teachers	<--Changing skills and levels of Education
	Students being taught	<--Fast pace of technological change

There are a number of interesting things that become apparent when applying his level framework to education. As a individual one of the lower rungs of this political ladder it is often very difficult to see where you fit. The first thing that appears to me is the top down nature of the political ladder of Alberta Education. The Minister of Education being influenced by the public applies policies to the ladder to help meet their expectations. There are financial pressures that the local boards feel as a result of the policies that the government chooses to apply to the public and this leads to either, an increase or decrease in funding for everything from dealing with failing or inadequate infrastructure to special programs to meet the needs of all learners. Finally it is becoming more apparent of the technological impact on the learning of students. This change is fast paced and is forcing unforeseen changes to the education system as a whole.

Although I have not included the arrows on the central column, we can talk about the information flow within this system. Student learning and their success is communicated up through this chain to the top. The information arrives on the desk of the Ministry of Education and decisions about the effectiveness can be made. The question arises as to the information that is arriving. Is it solely based on the standardized tests that are administered throughout the year? Is there any anecdotal evidence making it's way to the Minister? It appears to me that the financial pressures and the public opinion outweigh the feedback that is coming from within the system itself otherwise there is insufficient feedback that is making it's way. .

The question then arises as to what an accident might look like in education? There are the obvious accidents that may happen at a school setting that will capture headlines like Wakerton did. These would include, accidents leading to death on things such as field trips or intruders taking the lives of staff and students like in Taber, Alberta. Accident might be an understatement for these events and adjustments have been made in the form of increased paperwork for field trips, more formalized meetings to discuss possible accidents, and the implementation of lockdown procedures monitored/evaluated by local authorities.

But there hiding under the headlines is the greatest accident of education. One that will not capture the headlines like Wakerton or Taber. One where the mission of Alberta Education is not properly met; "Every student has access to educational opportunities needed to develop competencies required to contribute to an enriched society and a sustainable economy." (Alberta Education, 2010, p.1)


To this end how can we evaluate this short coming of education. "Access to opportunities" begin to become apparent when financial pressures mount and public policy dictates the ending of programs, programs designed to meet the needs of every learner. I think of individuals who are falling through the cracks of education, as teachers are overworked with increasingly larger class sizes. What is the boundary of economic failure, the boundary to unacceptable workload, the boundary of real safety for education? I would hasten to state that we are moving ever closer to these boundaries as education is placed under the press of economics and not being evaluated from a bottom up feedback approach. We must call on our politicians to reconsider their approach to modifying education using the litmus test of public opinion, as it is a fickle beast, one of which does not have the long term benefits of every learner in mind.

References

Alberta Education. (2010). Guide to Education. Retrieved from http://education.alberta.ca/media/832568/guidetoed.pdf

Vicente, Kim J. (2004). The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way We Live with Technology. Toronto: Vintage Canada

Organizational Change in Medicine- Recent Developments in Alberta

Reading the chapter on organizational design and it's impact on the ability of organizations to respond to error invokes feeling of disgust and anger. The realization that the way in which an organization suppresses the reporting of errors through it's attempt to catalogue errors and hold people to account, should motivate tremendous change. This change needs to happen particularly in the field of medicine. Is change currently happening and if so is it changing for the good?

To the credit of the Airline industry, they seemed to figure it out, 40 years ago. The development of the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) to allow pilots to report near misses without the ramification of potential firing was a brilliant idea, one that should be modeled by other large organizations/fields. It is beyond my belief that such a sophisticated field such as medicine with it's wealth of highly, highly educated individuals at all levels would not have figured this problem out. Why has there not been the development of a third independent party that would catalogue and share potential problems/solutions for doctors, nurses and the field of medicine as a whole? Think of the potential cost savings both financial and in lives. It is utterly tragic that people continue to die as a result of the blame and shame culture that Vicente writes about. It is horrific that society as a whole does not demand change for the sake of tax payers dollars and lives.

What is happening here in Alberta?

I did some research to see what type of reporting measures we have here in Alberta within the field of medicine. It turns out that the Alberta government recently established a framework for patient safety called the "Patient Safety Framework for Alberta" in September of 2010

The Patient Safety Framework contains 5 key principles which include:

1. Patients are the primary focus,
2. Organizations create a patient safety culture,
3. Information about adverse events is shared in a transparent manner,
4. A systems approach is required to understand and address the complexity of factors that contribute to error
5. A continuous improvement approach strengthens an organization's ability to use new knowledge to make informed patient safety improvements.

It was very exciting to see that there was an acknowledgement of the systems role in harming patients. "Errors are viewed as one factor contributing to patient harms but many other factors in the system also play a role" (Health Quality Council of Alberta, 2010, p.6) How does this framework measure up to the principles that Vicente's writes about on the formation of ASRS?  Is reporting of problems voluntary, confidential, non punitive and to an independent body within this framework?

This particular document highlights 6 strategies for the framework:

1. Implement a Provincial Adverse Event Reporting and Learning System
• the details of this system are not included in the document and thus can not be evaluated with regards to the reporting process
• It is my hope that they are able to make the reporting voluntary and confidential and that this system is an independent body to whom reports are filed.
2. Establish a Provincial Patient Safety Network
• Here is where the experts get involved. This is similar to what Charles Billings created within the ASRS. He had former pilots and experts in the field evaluate and catalogue the reports. The province has something similar in mind as well. 
3. Implement a Model of Safety Management
4. Organizations will develop an implement operational policies on a just and trusting culture, reporting and learning from adverse events, informing and disclosure
• Appears to attempt to get away from the blame and shame culture. This appears to be essential to ensuring that reporting actually will happen. That the culture of medicine get away from burying mistakes and begin a dialogue to talk about them.
5. Build knowledge and Capacity to support patient safety
6. Implement a patient/ family Safety Advisory Panel

It appears as though there has been an attempt to start to address the issue of reporting errors within the field of medicine here in Alberta. It is my sincere hope that the the Health Quality Council of Alberta is successful in establishing a framework that is as effective as the ASRS has been for the airline industry.


References

CTV.ca (September 20, 2010). Making it Easier to Report Medical Errors. CTV Calgary. Retrievied from http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100920/CGY_patient_error100920/20100920/?hub=CalgaryHome

Health Quality Council of Alberta. (September 2010). Patient Safety Framework for Albertans. Retrieved from http://www.hqca.ca/assets/pdf/Sept20/HQCA%20Patient%20Safety%20Framework%20081010.pdf

Vicente, Kim J. (2004). The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way We Live with Technology. Toronto: Vintage Canada