Patient Safety update
First Safety Culture Survey Reports on Results
In November, the hospital’s first patient safety culture survey was sent to 4,000 clinical staff—including nurses—to gauge perceptions of patient safety and to identify ways to improve it.
The 900 staff who responded to the 15-question survey pointed to two key areas for improvement: handoff communication and feedback to frontline staff.
“Work is already underway to improve handoff communication, and nurses are a key part of that work,” said Diane Lancaster, PhD, RN, director of Quality Measurement and Improvement in the Department of Nursing.
Patient Safety is examining ways to build on the best practices in place in certain departments, such as the handoff protocols used in the PACU, Cardiac Surgery, Interventional Radiology and Thoracic Surgery.
The survey results also identified opportunities for managers to emphasize the non-punitive nature of reporting errors and near misses, as well as recent safety improvements, which often are made at the suggestion of frontline staff.
One way that staff offer ideas for safety improvements is through the Safety Reporting system, which recently underwent changes to streamline the process. The Patient Safety team removed 13 optional questions to simplify reporting and also updated the Safety Reporting guidelines, which are available on BWHPikeNotes.org under the Compliance Corner Risk Management Section.
The Safety Culture survey’s questions come from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Culture Survey tool so that the hospital can benchmark data and compare results to national trends. BWH’s survey showed the hospital to be above the AHRQ average on the following:
Mistakes have led to positive changes here.
My supervisor/manager seriously considers staff suggestions for improving patient safety.
Information from this first survey will be incorporated into the next survey in 2009. The Patient Safety group will continue to improve how the survey is administered.