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I know the process for making suggestions to improve patient safety.
Survey Domain: Employee
Survey Theme: Quality/Customer Focus
Understanding the Issue: The first step is to understand the issues behind the survey performance scores. Unless you are absolutely sure that you understand the issues related to a particular survey item, the best place to start is identifying them, and the section Understanding Issues can help you do so. The activities described in Understanding Issues can be used for any of the survey items. Make sure you know what is behind your low score before you begin acting.
Improvement ideas:
Check for employees' understanding, and their ability to apply that understanding, when using sign-off sheets to communicate process or protocol changes. Studies have shown that using sign-off sheets for communicating new or changed standards or processes is not effective. Typically, 50% or fewer employees read and understand the changes. Transferring knowledge to others in busy environments is a common problem, requiring more than a memo or bulletin board posting.
Create, or use an existing, unit-based "learning collaborative" made up of care team members across disciplines to identify the most effective ways of disseminating policy and standards to ensure distribution and understanding.
Incorporate opportunities for making open-ended suggestions on quality and safety improvements into required annual education models.
Use rounding, huddles, and staff meeting discussions as a forum for employees to describe ways of submitting ideas to improve patient safety.
Foster an environment of inquiry, in which ideas are welcome and it is safe to question what goes on. Employees should feel free to question the effectiveness of practices affecting patient care and engage in problem-solving together to continuously improve outcomes.
Consider developing a "peer educator" role, a person with the responsibility to channel policies, standards, and other information to colleagues in the work unit and across shifts.
Centralize documentation describing safety and quality-related policies and processes so there can be no question about where to look for information. Creating electronic files in place of, or as back-up to, unit-based policy books may be useful for Intranet searching. Be sure these sources are kept current as changes occur.
(MI 2368)