Patient safety touches every aspect of hospital care, and every hospital can have tens of programs and initiatives that attempt to address each part of it.
Becker's asked three leaders what initiative moved the needle the most in that regard in the last two years:
Jennifer Rose. Senior Associate Vice President for Chandler Hospital and Expansion and Performance Improvement for UK HealthCare (Lexington, Ky.): While the electronic health record has been around for some time now, the evolution and optimization over the past two years have had a tremendous impact on patient safety. Our teams have focused on how to best leverage the EHR for safe patient care, including compliance with barcode medication administration, a process that ensures we are delivering the right drug to the right patient every time. Another example is computerized physician order entry. This is not a new concept in healthcare, but as we mature in the use of this technology, we can optimize the EHR to check for drug-to-drug or drug-to-patient interactions that can be lifesaving.
EHR optimization also includes the ability to implement order sets that ensure we are delivering best-practice care to patients consistently. Our teams are always focused on new capabilities to impact patient safety. We are currently implementing functionality where the EHR will be able to align with infusion pumps and protocols and utilize dose error reduction software to reduce the risk of adverse events. The EHR has also enabled us to begin to understand our patient populations better and their social drivers. This means that we can meet the patients where they are and improve as a health system to provide the care they need, how they need it.
As the world advances in the use of artificial intelligence and the amount of data available in the EHR, capabilities to provide safe patient care will only continue to improve.
Charleen Tachibana, DNP, RN. Chief Quality, Safety and Patient Experience Officer at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health (Seattle): The single most important initiative we have is our focus on patient engagement and empowering patients and their families to be active participants in their care. This includes work across our organization like having patients and families participate in care rounds and holding registered nurse shift handoffs at the bedside to ensure patients are involved and hear their care plan firsthand and correct any misinformation. Patients who participate and are engaged can make better decisions about their care, better manage their disease and overall have better outcomes.
Lisa Yerian, MD. Chief Clinical and Operational Improvement Officer and Executive Vice President at Cleveland Clinic: At Cleveland Clinic, we have a system-wide approach to safety, which includes building a safety culture, training our caregivers, and fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Although we continue to grow, we have embraced a common language around safety throughout our organization. We have worked on empowering caregivers at all levels to question and speak up when there is a potential safety issue. We encourage this behavior by sharing problems openly in our tiered daily huddles and celebrating good catches. In addition, all of our caregivers have gone through high reliability training and participate in monthly leader guided discussions on a variety of topics. Patient safety remains an important priority and at the center of all we do.