E to the E to the E to the E: Next step(s) towards a reporting culture
Thinking that this may have gotten lost in the year-end shuffle, I wanted to take a moment to cover a little ground relative to Sentinel Event Alert (SEA) #60: Developing a reporting culture: Learning from close calls and hazardous conditions. I believe (I was going to say “know,” but that’s probably a little more hyperbolic than I can reasonably venture, but I’m basing it on your “presence” here—you folks are all about getting better and on the off chance that I provide something useful to that end, I’m pleased to have you along for the ride) that you folks are committed to ongoing evaluation of performance, occurrences, funky happenstance, etc. and so little of this will come as anything resembling revelation. That said, I think we do need to prepare ourselves for the wild and wacky world of surveyor overreach and draconian interpretation. Part of my “concern” (OK, perhaps most of it) revolves around the innate simplicity of the thrust of SEA #60. It’s straightforward, cogent, and all the things you would want through which to develop a compliance framework:
- Establish trust
- Encourage reporting
- Eliminate fear of punishment
- Examine errors, close calls and hazardous conditions
But, how do you know when you’ve actually complied with this stuff? Is this more of an activity-driven requirement: We’re going to do A, B, and C to “establish” trust, then we’ll do D, E, F, G, and H to encourage reporting? (Aren’t we already encouraging reporting?) And the whole “eliminate fear” thing (I’ve had one or two bosses that would have a hard time not administering some sort of retributory action if you messed up)…how do you pull that off? Likely, the examination of errors and close calls is a normal part of doing business, but the examination of hazardous conditions seems less of a fit in this hierarchy. My own tendency when I find a hazardous condition is to try and resolve it (I do love a good session of problem-solving), but maybe it’s more of an examination once someone reports the condition as hazardous. Not quite sure about that.
At any rate, there’s lots of information available on the subject, including an infographic on the 4E methodology, as well as the usual caches of information, etc. which you can find here and here and here.
I am a big fan of encouraging the reporting of stuff by the folks at the point of care/point of service, so to the extent that this moves healthcare in that direction, I’m all for it. So, my question to you is: Does this represent a shift for the way in which you practice safety in your organization or perhaps gives you a little bit more leverage to get folks to “say something if they see something”? Does this help or is it just so much “blah, blah, blah”?
About the Author: Steve MacArthur is a safety consultant with The Greeley Company in Danvers, Mass. He brings more than 30 years of healthcare management and consulting experience to his work with hospitals, physician offices, and ambulatory care facilities across the country. He is also a contributing editor for Healthcare Safety Leader. Contact Steve at stevemacsafetyspace@gmail.com.