University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service graduate Ryan Solomon (’20) has co-authored an article published in the Spring 2020 edition of Arkansas Hospitals magazine. “CANDOR Comes to Arkansas: A Candid Approach to Care” focuses on the approach of speaking openly, honestly, and directly with patients, families, and employees when a patient harm event occurs.
Solomon’s co-author on the article is Dr. Tim McDonald, President of the Center for Open and Honest Communication at the MedStar Institute for Quality and Safety, Professor of Law at Loyola University-Chicago, and President of Transparent Health Consulting.
The article looks at CANDOR – Communication and Optimal Resolution – and its focus on normalizing compassion and transparency while creating processes to improve care for patients and caregivers in all areas of a healthcare organization.
Researching the implementation of CANDOR at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, where Solomon serves as Assistant General Counsel and Director of Enterprise Risk Management, was the subject of his Capstone project at the Clinton School.
CANDOR represents a paradigm shift from a guarded, defensive posture in health care to a more timely, open and honest response to patient harm events. According to the article, CANDOR emphasizes immediate, ongoing and transparent communication with patients and caregivers; a human-factors-based analysis and process redesign; and a fair, transparent resolution process with families.
CANDOR’s components provide a road map for the principled management of patient harm from the moment it occurs – through review of the event and emotional support of patients, family members, clinicians and other health care staff – until resolution and learning have taken place.
Solomon was part of the first class to complete the Clinton School’s online degree program. He graduated with his bachelor’s degree in political science from UA Little Rock in 1999 before earning his juris doctor from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, in 2002.
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