Resources

Provide Feedback to Front-Line Staff

Feedback to the front-line staff is a critical component of demonstrating a commitment to safety and ensuring that staff members continue to report safety issues. If the leadership acts upon suggestions, staff members should know their voices were heard and should be recognized for their contributions, especially when the leadership’s response would otherwise be invisible from the front lines. Maintaining a consistent flow of information from senior leadership affirms that every safety initiative is important and not a fleeting “idea of the month.”

Tips

Use Patient Safety Leadership WalkRounds™ as an opportunity to provide feedback to staff, as well as to hear staff suggestions and ideas.
Ensure that the feedback system reaches all staff members, including those who work on alternate shifts, on weekends, or intermittently.
Develop a newsletter for communicating safety information, or add a page or column to an existing newsletter. Make sure some messages come directly from senior leaders.
Recognize and thank staff members in front of their peers for their suggestions.
Give feedback about each suggestion even if you can’t act on it: make sure the staff member who made the suggestion knows it was investigated and explain why you could not take action.
Make responses timely — failure to provide prompt feedback will make staff members think you don’t listen or take action.

Appoint a Safety Champion for Every Unit
Communicating information about patient safety is an important responsibility that should not always fall to managers alone.
Develop a Culture of Safety
In a culture of safety, people are not merely encouraged to work toward change; they take action when it is needed.

Patient Safety Leadership WalkRounds™
Senior leaders conduct weekly WalkRounds to have informal conversations with front-line staff about safety issues and to demonstrate their support of an organizational culture that promotes nonpunitive reporting of errors, adverse events, near misses, and unsafe conditions.

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Provide Feedback to Front-Line Staff