Almost two years ago I wrote a post talking about how so many people are trying to attain perfection and feeling bad because they can't get there. I said that while it's great shooting for it, that believing it can ever be reached and then maintained is an unrealistic goal.

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David Clow via Compfight

I figured it was time to bring it into the health care arena, an area I know pretty well. After all, when things aren't perfect in health care, people can get hurt and some people die; that's a nice thing to think about isn't it?

A couple of decades ago I was working in this hospital where, on the wall of one of the big conference rooms, there was a plaque that had been put up. It said:

"A 1% error rate means 10,000 babies could die out of every 1 million. We need to be better than that."

That sounds pretty bad doesn't it? In one way we're lucky that the percentage is lower than that; in another way... well, let's look at some numbers, just for perspective.

In the United States, we average close to 4 million births a year. We also average around 11,300 deaths of newborns a year. That comes in around .28%. As bad as it is thinking about babies dying, that's a better percentage than 1%.

Until you look at this stat; out of the top 68 industrialized countries in the world, not only does the United States have the highest rate of deaths at 35%, but it's 50% higher than the other 67 countries combined. Makes you think differently doesn't it?

There's a lot of pressure put on hospitals in the United States. There's also this constant battle between error rates and money; might as well put it out there for all to see because people in health care know it already.

There are a lot of reimbursement rules that can penalize hospitals for poor performance. To try to fix many of these things, it takes more money than most hospitals can generate. The general public and the government believe it can all be taken care of easily; not even close.

That's because, at least as it pertains to babies, a lot of the issues that lead to these deaths aren't internal, but external. Per a story from NBC News, a group called Save the Children said that politics and culture both play a role.

“Many babies in the United States are born too early. The U.S. preterm birth rate (1 in 8 births) is one of the highest in the industrialized world (second only to Cyprus). In fact, 130 countries from all across the world have lower preterm birth rates than the United States”.

They also added: “Poverty, racism and stress are likely to be important contributing factors to first-day deaths in the United States and other industrialized countries.”

You might not believe it but this article isn't about health care per se, though I used them as my example, especially the information about babies. It's an article helping to explain why perfection often can't be attained and how the fault doesn't always lie with the party you might expect.

I'll say this; every hospital in the country has health errors and problems with cash; some more than most. You will never have a perfect hospital that doesn't make mistakes because there's never enough personnel or enough money to get there.

Sometimes it's the hospital's fault. Sometimes it's the fault of those who aren't in health care who get to make the rules. In a way it's like politicians who want the CIA to stop terrorism yet doesn't want them to do anything that someone might term "unethical"... or at least not tell anyone what's going on.

Overall, none of us can avoid looking at outside factors when we're shooting for perfection, or any semblance close to it. Remember last year when LeBron James, the best basketball player in the NBA, cramped up when the arena in San Antonio lost its air conditioning? Remember this year when he was far and away the best player in the finals, but the strength of his supporting cast went missing because of injuries?

It would be a nice world if perfection was something that could be attained and kept by many of us. It's also realistic. I've heard people talking about going on vacation in "paradise", only to mention later that they had to deal with bugs, too much heat, high prices and a host of other things. Yet, they had a pretty good time anyway (although the bugs thing would ruin it for me...).

That's the thing about reaching for perfection. Even if you can't attain it things can be pretty good... if you have control of most of the factors.

American health care is going to be what it is until there are a lot of changes both internally and externally. For the rest of us... we can make our lives better, but if we think we're ever going to be perfect and that we have to get there to enjoy our lives... it's only going to end in disappointment.

At least that's my take on it; maybe you feel different?