Breaking compliance into small bites
It seems lately that I have spending a fair amount of time on regional jets, which because they tend not have TV screens in the set backs, prompts me to read. One recent “find” (I encountered it at the library and had no foreknowledge of its existence) was Change The Recipe by chef Jose Andres. He does a lot of philanthropic work, but he is perhaps best known for feeding people in disaster and war-torn areas of the world. The book is fairly modest in size, but had a lot of what I thought were interesting ideas about the age-old conundrum of "eating the elephant" which involves breaking things down to more consumable amounts. One of the methods is that sandwiches can be an effective means of not only feeding people, but also getting folks into the act of feeding—I mean, how difficult is it to make a sandwich? A couple pieces of bread and something in the middle and, voila! Plus, a sandwich is pretty portable—it can go anywhere!
This got me thinking about what kind of sandwich might work to enlist support for compliance in the physical environment. If we look at compliance as a binary system—a whole mess of zeroes and ones—how do we shift those zeroes (that's how I'll characterize instances of non-compliance) to ones (instances of compliance). So, how do break things down so that those zeroes becomes the ones of compliance, or, what is your compliance sandwich? Is there a way to define compliance within your organization that not only clearly points out what not to do, but also promulgates a means of "doing the right thing," even when (or, perhaps, especially when) no one is looking.
In the book, Chef Andres relates the story of a very early morning in Washington DC in which he observed an individual picking up a newspaper from the street where it had been left behind and discarding it, seemingly without prompting and apparently not knowing they were being observed. If we could get everyone in our organizations to act without prompting when they encounter an issue, even if it’s just to call someone or put in a work order, could we harness that action into something that looks like sustainable compliance? I know it's kind of aspirational (which is certainly another theme that has been showing up of late in this Space), but I don't know how we can make effective, sustainable improvements without being at least a little aspirational. I choose to believe in better—how about you?
About the Author: Steve MacArthur is a safety consultant with The Chartis Group. 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 the author of HCPro's Hospital Safety Director's Handbook and is an advisory board member for Accreditation and Quality Compliance Center. Contact Steve at stevemacsafetyspace@gmail.com.