Patient Safety

Patient Safety is a widely discussed topic, and despite all the attention in recent years, the progress made so far is insufficient as indicated by study after study. Safety, in any industry, is driven by several complex factors and an effective patient safety program must properly integrate these factors.

Safety training is one key component to increased safety levels. However, training alone will never yield substantial gains in safety since safety, or lack thereof, is largely a behaviors issue. Certainly the staff must be provided with mechanisms and tools to aid in the safe execution of processes, and one efficient way to deliver those mechanisms and tools is via Safety workshops. In addition to those workshops, it is imperative that behaviors among the staff is changed to a ‘safety first’ mindset.

This change in mindset requires two elements that the staff must not only be proficient at but also comfortable with.

1. Identification of unsafe practices
   All staff members must be trained to identify any unsafe practices, whether they are conducted by clinical staff, housekeeping staff, family members or guests. In order to gain this skill the staff must be equipped with ‘lenses’ where any unsafe behavior is recognized immediately.
   
2. The staff must be confident in stopping the unsafe action, regardless of who is conducting it. If interaction with higher ranking colleagues is required, communication patters must be established that allow a lower ranking member to intervene without negative consequence of fear thereof. If interactions with patients, family members or guests are required, transparency principles must be firmly instilled to ensure no negative patient satisfaction impact.

At Healthcare Excellence Institute we take patient safety very seriously and are glad to develop a safety program customized to your particular organization. Examples of the components are:

• Patient Safety Workshop Series
• Teaching Transparency Principles
• Safety Audits
• Preparation and implementation of checklists, check-sheets and action lists
• Establishment of proper communication protocols
  • Read-back
  • Challenge and response
  • Non-confrontational glossary
• FMEA training and support
• SOP implementation
• Crew resource management

For more information please contact us.

Patient Safety | FMEA/JCAHO | Crew Resource Management