At first sight it might appear a mish-mash.

A Bermuda-hosted luncheon in Chicago for the healthcare sector with a US Air Force lieutenant colonel as guest speaker.

However, the first Bermuda Markets Education Luncheon turned out to be an illuminating experience for those who attended and heard decorated pilot John Nance explain what the medical world could learn from the aviation world.

He alluded to the world’s worst aviation disaster - the crash between two 747 passenger planes in the Canary Islands in 1977 - as one example where a difference might have been made if a lower-ranked member of a team had been more forthright in speaking up to question one of the plane’s pilots moments before the tragedy.

Mr. Nance gave a presentation on changing culture, breaking down barriers that block communication among professionals, getting rid of the “blame culture” and instilling true teamwork.

The luncheon at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago was sponsored by the Bermuda Insurance Development Council and 14 Bermuda-based healthcare insurance markets that provide healthcare insurance and reinsurance to hospitals, nursing homes and physician groups in the US. It was held at the annual meeting of the American Society of Healthcare Risk Management.

Guest speaker Mr. Nance, who is still a Lt. Col. in the USAF Reserve, told those who attended the Bermuda-sponsored gathering that medicine was facing a crisis and needed a revolution. He said the sector was burdened by a “blame culture” where the tendency was to ask only “who was wrong?” whenever there was an incident, accident or problem rather than ask “What is wrong?”

He drew parallels between the medical profession and the aviation profession, such as the preponderance of factors such as fatigue, distraction, attitude and anger, upset, task saturation, misunderstanding verbal input and inherent failures to communicate which frustrate teamwork and fragment large organisations.

David Fox, of the Bermuda Insurance Development Council, was one of those who attended the luncheon.

He said the airforce veteran “drew a comparison between the safety culture of the aviation industry - which strives to achieve nil casualties - and the health care system, which anticipates the occasional mistake.

“He urged the healthcare system to change this culture by encouraging nurses to speak up and warn the doctors if they suspect something is wrong.”

Mr. Nance said many mistakes were caused by three things, namely perception, assumption and communication. And he made a poignant point by referencing the world's worst air disaster when two packed 747 jumbo jets collided in thick fog on the runway at Tenerife in the Canary Islands in 1977.

From radio communication recordings moments before the crash it is evident a flight engineer on one of the planes starting its take-off questioned his senior officer, the pilot, about whether the other jumbo jet had cleared the runway.

It has been speculated since that, had the cockpit engineer repeated his concern or been more forceful in questioning his superior, the plane may have halted its take-off and thus prevented the disaster which killed 583 passengers and crew, with 61 people surviving.

Mr. Nance, who is also a founding member of the American Medical Association's National Patient Safety Foundation, then contrasted with a personal story of how an 18-year-old recruit had potentially saved the lives of passengers on a large plane being flown by Mr. Nance by having the courage to tell the captain he was flying outside his authorised traffic control zone.

Bermuda's Mr. Fox said: "He (Mr. Nance) believes the aviation industry has learned from its communication/perception mistakes of years past and has avoided errors through new communication models. But he said the healthcare industry has much to learn from what aviation has accomplished."