National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety: 4 Focus Areas
Improving safety has been a top priority at healthcare organizations across the country for the last two decades, but preventable harm is still an issue. To help tackle this problem, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement-convened National Steering Committee for Patient Safety released Safer Together: A National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety earlier this fall.
Interview: William Gunnar, MD, JD, FACHE, Veterans Affairs National Center for Patient Safety
The recent release of Safer Together: A National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety marks the latest contribution of William Gunnar, MD, JD, FACHE, to a better healthcare system. Dr. Gunnar, director of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Center for Patient Safety, also is a member of the National Steering Committee for […]
ACHE, Along With IHI, AHRQ Announce National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety
The American College of Healthcare Executives today joins with members of the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety to announce the release of a National Action Plan to provide health systems with renewed momentum and clearer direction for eliminating preventable medical harm. Continue Reading→
Safety 101 Syllabus: Establish Organizational Behavior Expectations
The COVID-19 pandemic has led hospitals across the globe to rethink safety and implement new processes and protocols to protect the health of patients, visitors, staff and anyone else who might enter a healthcare organization. Such measures include creating COVID and non-COVID patient care units, building negative pressure rooms, expanding the use of PPE and […]
Safety 101 Syllabus: Select, Develop and Engage Your Board
When it comes to achieving zero harm in healthcare, there is no silver bullet solution. Leading a Culture of Safety: A Blueprint for Success does, however, outline six leadership domains that can help ensure safety remains a focus from the top down in hospitals and other healthcare settings.
Safety 101 Syllabus: Prioritize Safety in Selection and Development of Leaders
Welcome back, class. Since posting our last lesson, the COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the globe and presented the healthcare field with new, never before seen obstacles. Between the high contagiousness and rapid spread of the virus, patient surges, shortages of personal protective equipment and ventilators, and limited testing supplies, keeping staff and patients safe […]
Redefining Criticism
(Members Only) Healthcare organizations are quick to laud, with good reason, employees who fix problems on the fly and make things work, all too often in the face of seemingly impossible situations and systemic barriers. Organizational leaders are sometimes less exuberant about employees who point out defects or potential sources of failure in our systems. […]
Five to Zero: How High Reliability Happens
(Members Only) In the mid-1980s, following a scathing attack on anesthesia safety by ABC television’s 20/20 program, Ellison “Jeep” Pierce Jr., MD, then president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, conceived the idea of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, and the ubiquitous term “patient safety” was born out of this effort. Pierce’s vision was a […]
Engaging the Board in Patient Safety Goals
Over the past few decades, many hospitals and health systems have invested significant time and resources in building and reinforcing quality improvement and patient safety programs. This has led to declines in some medical error rates. For instance, central line-associated blood stream infections dropped by 50 percent between 2008 and 2016, and have continued to […]
The Promise and Practice of a Just Culture
Leaders whose organizations have made big safety gains will tell you that a high-reliability safety culture is one of shared learning characterized by an atmosphere of trust. Members of the workforce feel safe speaking up when they make an error or encounter circumstances that could lead to harm. And, since these high-performing organizations recognize that […]