This week, March 10-16 marks the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s annual Patient Safety Awareness Week. The function is to advance necessary discussions and encourage motion to enhance the protection of the healthcare system — for sufferers and the workforce. It is a devoted time for rising consciousness about affected person security and recognizing the work being executed to put it up for sale.

At HCA Healthcare, we embed affected person security into day-to-day operations at our services. Chief Patient Safety Officer Dr. Karla Miller shares a few of the methods we engineer affected person security into our well being system and introduces two colleagues main the best way for affected person security excellence.

By Karla Miller
HCA Healthcare Chief Patient Safety Officer

HCA Healthcare has lengthy been dedicated to offering protected, high quality care to sufferers and communities. Patient Safety Awareness Week is a devoted time to refocus our discussions round affected person security, and acknowledge the good work being executed to maintain our sufferers protected.

Although vital progress has been remodeled the previous a number of years in bettering the protection of healthcare, preventable affected person hurt nonetheless happens. According to an article revealed in January 2023 by the New England Journal of Medicine, practically one out of each 4 sufferers experiences an adversarial occasion throughout the healthcare trade, and practically one-fourth of these occasions is preventable. There are nonetheless vital alternatives to enhance the protection of affected person care. As healthcare clinicians throughout the trade, we have now the duty to talk up about affected person security and make enhancements to processes and techniques to keep away from preventable hurt.

For many years HCA Healthcare has been an early adopter of expertise and processes to improve patient safety.  We have high quality and security requirements that set expectations throughout the trade. We are purposeful about integrating security into care via folks, processes and expertise, and measure outcomes to scale back hurt, stop struggling and save lives.

I’m happy to report that earlier this week, Healthgrades introduced 93 HCA Healthcare services earned 2024 Patient Safety Excellence Awards. This program acknowledges hospitals within the prime 10% within the nation for affected person security, with the bottom occurrences of 14 preventable affected person security occasions. Per Healthgrades, HCA Healthcare has essentially the most recipients of this award nationally for affected person security.

Thanks to all of our leaders and colleagues who share my ardour for affected person security. I’m completely satisfied to share a few of the ways in which, collectively, we engineer affected person security into our tradition at HCA Healthcare.

Culture of security

Safe, high quality care have to be embedded into a corporation’s tradition. Across HCA Healthcare, affected person security and care expertise groups are accountable for managing a federally chartered affected person security group, and overseeing occasion reporting, affected person expertise, barcode treatment administration and medicine diversion prevention, amongst different packages. These groups are additionally accountable for scientific pharmacy surveillance software program, applied to forestall life-threatening treatment errors, enhance affected person outcomes and cut back drug waste.

We leverage a Culture of Safety survey to assist us measure our security initiatives. This survey is a useful software that helps drive our security agenda and make sure the voice of our colleagues is heard. As we assess our nameless survey outcomes and candid suggestions, we’re in a position to attract insights into the strengths of our security tradition in addition to our vulnerabilities. 

Safe Tables: Your voice issues

HCA Healthcare’s Patient Safety Organization (PSO) was established ten years in the past to enhance affected person security and healthcare high quality by constructing techniques and refining processes to foster a tradition of security. Intentionally specializing in defending conversations round affected person security, the PSO holds an annual, enterprise-wide “Safe Table” marketing campaign. The function of Safe Tables is to encourage all colleagues to share issues and concepts associated to the supply of protected, high quality care. Thousands of colleagues share their ideas throughout Safe Table campaigns and because of this, leaders implement modifications regionally and enterprise-wide.

Each and on daily basis our colleagues set the usual of security at our services. Your voice issues and shapes the standard of care all through our group. The greatest approach to have fun and acknowledge Patient Safety Awareness Week is by persevering with to exhibit our concentrate on affected person security, so thanks for sharing your voice… and please proceed to take action!

Physician Services Culture of Caring

HCA Healthcare’s scientific leaders are grounded within the perception that each one sufferers are entitled to protected, compassionate, supportive, well timed and collaborative healthcare that delivers optimistic outcomes and an distinctive expertise. These seven descriptors outline the core ideas of Physician Services’ Culture of Caring initiative.

Launching in early 2024, the Culture of Caring initiative will highlight tales of colleagues going the additional mile to look after sufferers and one another. It will embrace related assets and academic alternatives, together with for affected person security excellence. Our colleagues are doing great issues to indicate they care, and we need to acknowledge them and empower others to do the identical. Culture of Caring will come to represent “how we do healthcare” in HCA Healthcare’s Physician Services Group.

With gratitude, and colleague highlights

Thank you to all HCA Healthcare colleagues to your partnership in our affected person security work and to your dedication to the care and enchancment of human life. There is nothing extra necessary than offering a protected expertise for the individuals who entrust us with their care. Please take pleasure in these colleague spotlights that characteristic simply two of our colleagues for whom affected person security is their focus on daily basis.

Fostering a tradition of security at HCA Florida Kendall Hospital

Aaron Clute has spent the previous three years of his profession serving to to foster a tradition of security at HCA Florida Kendall Hospital in Miami. As the hospital’s affected person security director, he’s accountable for involving each member of the care groups and leveraging expertise to assist present a safe surroundings for our sufferers and colleagues. “It is through the collaboration with multidisciplinary leaders, colleagues and frontline staff that our culture of safety blossoms,” Aaron defined.

As selling security is a group effort, Aaron acknowledges that he can’t be a frontrunner on this space by sitting behind his desk. “Taking the time to connect with colleagues and having one-on-one discussions apprises me of the real-time concerns and barriers to their work,” Aaron mentioned. “It is not enough to hear their concerns, but to circle back with how we addressed and resolved them.”

Aaron says the optimistic results of HCA Healthcare’s Safe Table discussions are straightforward to see. “These open forums have revealed several opportunities to optimize the care we provide to our patients,” Aaron mentioned. “We have converted these opportunities into actions to improve our processes.”

Improvements to affected person security processes are usually not solely addressed and applied on the one facility the place a possible concern is raised. It is usually cascaded as a greatest apply to the 186 hospitals throughout HCA Healthcare’s community of hospitals. “It is this ability to share safety events and best practices that makes this organization so special,” Aaron shared. “HCA Healthcare has shown that once a best practice is identified, it can be effectively scaled from one hospital or division to another.”

Cultivating an surroundings the place Texas colleagues can improve affected person security

Jessica Kirby has held many alternative roles inside HCA Healthcare over the previous 25 years. Starting as a bodily remedy technician at HCA Healthcare’s LewisGale Hospital Pulaski in Virginia in 1998, Jessica has grown her profession and cared for sufferers via varied roles. She is now proud to steer affected person security efforts throughout our Central and West Texas Division hospitals and services “to support the amazing care our teams provide to every patient, every day.”

One of the cornerstones of affected person security inside the hospitals and services she helps is the utilization of Safe Tables. Jessica says opening the doorways to those conversations in formal group settings, in addition to impromptu boards when rounding on affected person care items, results in an surroundings wherein our colleagues really feel protected to have open and trustworthy conversations associated to security.

Lately, she notes that these boards have served as catalysts for proactive discussions on matters starting from reviewing the downtime affect on scientific care to discussing affected person security with graduate medical schooling residents. The suggestions from the Safe Table discussions is then analyzed by Jessica and her group members throughout the division to assist determine and act upon alternatives to enhance affected person security and the standard of healthcare supply. 

Forums are usually not the one locations the place colleagues are inspired to make use of their voices in regard to affected person security. Through the implementation of the “Good Catch” program, hospitals and services in Jessica’s division are capable of acknowledge colleagues who report potential errors, adversarial occasions and shut calls concerning affected person security.