We have collected the best content we know of — including change concepts, measures, resources, improvement stories, and downloadable tools — to help you improve patient safety in your organization. But, you may ask, "Where should I begin?"
Try starting here:
Leadership is the critical element in a successful patient safety program. Eight steps to achieving patient safety and high reliability are presented in the Leadership Guide to Patient Safety. Also see a collection of leadership resources for effective crisis management after a sentinel event.
A culture of safety is an atmosphere of mutual trust in which all staff members can talk freely about safety problems and how to solve them, without fear of blame or punishment — essential to improving patient safety in any organization. Learn more about changes you can implement to Develop a Culture of Safety.
For tips on using the Model for Improvement to improve patient safety — including Forming a Team, Setting Aims, Establishing Measures, and Testing Changes — see the How to Improve page.
Review the comprehensive change packages for reducing surgical site infections (SSIs) and for improving medication systems — and pick a change to test in your organization by next Tuesday.
A key to success in improving patient safety is selecting a pilot population to begin testing and measuring. This is your chance to determine what works well and what does not. Once you have tested changes with the pilot group, you will have a framework for thinking about spreading changes to other areas of your organization.
Read how one organization achieved a dramatic reduction in adverse drug events (ADEs). Review their team report, including the changes they tested and implemented, and the key lessons learned.
Select a measure related to patient safety — for example, Percent of Admissions with an Adverse Event. Read about how to collect data for the measure you choose, then begin using the Improvement Tracker to enter, save, and automatically graph your team's data over time.
Read the Introduction to Trigger Tools — an easy-to-use method for accurately identifying adverse events (harm) and measuring the rate of adverse events (AEs) over time. Tracking AEs over time is a useful way to tell if changes being made are improving the safety of the care processes.
If along your journey you want to interact with others working on improvements, participate in a discussion group.
