“One of the things we’ve done with our cleaning staff is to ensure they understand their role is not about cleaning rooms, or the elevator or stairs — it’s about decreasing infections,” Carlos Roberts, MD, vice president and chief medical officer of the women and children service line at WellSpan, said on a recent episode of the AHA’s Advancing Health podcast. “When we change the perspective of the job they’re carrying out, it allows us all to be aligned with reducing harm in the hospital and trying to achieve our goal of zero harm.”
WellSpan adopted safety huddles more than three years ago, using a tiered structure with six escalating levels to ensure rapid communication and resolution of safety concerns. Huddles begin at the front line where care is delivered (tier 1). Issues are then escalated through managers and directors as needed until they reach executive leadership (tier 6). This structure ensures that an issue reported at 4 a.m., for instance, can be addressed by senior leaders by mid-morning, Dr. Roberts said. Non-clinical teams, such as security and cleaning staff, also routinely hold safety huddles to ensure a systemwide commitment to patient and staff safety.
While identifying and mitigating risks is a core focus, WellSpan also uses the huddle structure to recognize achievements. Each meeting begins with a reaffirmation of the collective goal of zero, followed by discussions on safety events, operational challenges and wins that deserve celebration.
A critical component of this approach is closing the loop, Dr. Roberts said. Just as concerns are escalated, resolutions and follow-ups are communicated back down through the tiers to ensure frontline staff see tangible outcomes from their reports. This two-way communication builds confidence in the process and keeps staff engaged in the health system’s safety mission.
“We always start with sharing our common goal,” Dr. Roberts said. “Our common goal is working towards zero harm for 23,000 team members and our patients. And it’s an opportunity for us to work towards that zero harm and also to share things in an open way without concern about retaliation.”
“Once we set that as our bar for operating, then everyone comes to the table sharing things. Then we kind of bucket things into: Do we have any safety events? Do we have any operational challenges, call outs or providers that are ill?”
Learn more about the tiered safety huddles here.
