Rural hospital aims to build patient-safety culture
Survey results inspire management to tackle numerous issues
Thursday November 6, 2008 -- Natalie Miller
Stepping into a multi-faceted role at an Ontario hospital, Barbara Tiessen was captivated by the patient safety literature beginning to circulate around the world.

In 2005, patient safety issues weren't quite as prevalent in the province as they are today. But Tiessen, vice-president of patient services and chief nursing executive at Leamington District Memorial Hospital, was motivated to take part in a Canadian Council for Health Services Accreditation's Patient Safety Cultural Assessment project.

"I was very intrigued by the patient safety literature," says Tiessen. "I just really wanted to (take part). I knew we had a lot of work to do here."

She was right. Tiessen says findings revealed staff members felt there was a culture of blame at the 88-bed rural community hospital and they felt senior management didn't care about patient safety and didn't "walk the talk. That was kind of a slap in the face."

However, it shed light on the fact something needed to be done to improve the culture at the hospital, Tiessen says.

"This cultural assessment tool and its results gave me a lever to embark on a serious patient safety plan. It gave us data we couldn't ignore."

"I was very clear to me the executive team had to build credibility in the organization (and demonstrate) that we did care about patient safety and didn't blame people."

She says the survey helped Leamington develop an eight-point patient safety action plan.

First, they evaluated the culture. In response, they posted a patient safety action plan throughout the hospital. The plan included education. For instance, the hospital focused on talking to employees about transparency and the ability to come forward with concerns. The hospital encouraged reporting - noting it was usually systems, not people, that were at fault.

Leamington hospital also adopted leadership walkarounds, which involve managers doing tours of the floors weekly to provide a presence and opportunity for staff to talk with them. In addition, the hospital created a medication safety committee, an anonymous hotline for patient safety reporting and recruited volunteer clinical and non-clinical front-line staff to be patient safety champions.

These areas served as just a few starting points for the hospital.

— More to come

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