ADNPSO’s analysis of 116 clinics revealed only 3 events reported PER YEAR per clinic across a 3-year period, underscoring the urgent need for a focus on improving the culture of safety in the outpatient setting.
One of the most vetted measurement tools to quantify your patient safety culture and to identify problem areas is the Survey on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). In this article, you will learn 6 best practices for your next SOPS to both fulfill accreditor and watchdog expectations and, more importantly, to make the process pay off in the form of an improved safety culture for your organization.
Fall prevention in healthcare involves managing patients’ underlying risk factors and optimizing their environment to reduce the likelihood of an unplanned descent to the floor. Resources such as Fall Prevention Toolkits have been shown effective in reducing this type of patient safety event.
Voluntary Patient Safety Event Reporting is a method of collecting details and information about an incident, near miss or unsafe condition in hospitals and other care settings through an electronic or paper-based form submitted by frontline staff. To achieve the highest levels of reliability, organizations must defy human nature by eagerly embracing the evidence of failure. This article will suggest six strategies, and even more specific techniques, for creating a culture that encourages — and even incentivizes — team members at all levels to report incidents, near misses and unsafe conditions.
Preoccupation with failure in healthcare refers to the need for continuous attention to anomalies that could be symptoms of larger problems in a system. High Reliability Organizations (HROs) that demonstrate a preoccupation with failure strive to detect small, emerging failures because these may be clues to additional failures elsewhere in the system. At its root, preoccupation with failure is a mindset that anticipates and specifies significant mistakes that an organization doesn’t want to make.
Patients and their loved ones expect medical care they can rely on. As a High Reliability Organization (HRO), prioritizing a safe and error-free environment builds trust between medical providers and their patients.
Many quality and patient safety leaders have multiple responsibilities within their departments. American Data Network (ADN) has compiled a list of free resources that we hope can make life easier for you and help you get more done in your pursuit of improving care at your organization.