What are your plans to improve patient safety in 2017? Are they hospital-specific or do they extend across the continuum of care? Are they proactive or reactive? Is the work part of an overall system of safety, knitted together by an engaged staff, a thriving safety culture, and continuous learning? However you answer these questions, IHI is heading into the new year more determined than ever to help hospitals and health systems make greater gains in reducing harm to patients, anchored by a renewed focus and new framing.

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Who better to explain all this than IHI President and CEO, Derek Feeley, and IHI President Emeritus, Don Berwick. Derek was eager to talk about six principles that organizations can use to guide their safety work going forward. Among them: Shifting from a mindset of preventing things from going wrong to making as many things as possible go right; and inviting patients and families into the process of co-producing safety as opposed to keeping their input at arm’s length.

 

What are some ways to translate this deepening perspective into action? How do you stay focused on patient safety when so many other performance expectations in health care demand your attention?  ​