HCA Healthcare Celebrates Patient Safety Awareness Week

Each year, HCA Healthcare partners with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) on its “United for Patient Safety” campaign and commemorative Patient Safety Awareness Week, which highlights the importance of patient safety and practitioners in the healthcare industry. HCA Healthcare continues to be an industry leader in patient safety, which is at the forefront of our work to provide compassionate, patient-centered care in our more than 35 million annual patient encounters.

“We have a long-standing commitment to a culture of safety, and we know that safe practice and high reliability involve more than luck,” said Dr. Jonathan B. Perlin, HCA Healthcare’s president, clinical services, and chief medical officer. “As a learning health system that uses data from care to inform and improve future care, we engineer quality and safety into our work to continuously improve outcomes, and transform care for our patients and beyond.”

“We are able to conduct large-scale research in short periods of time, as with our 39 Weeks study that established worldwide practice standards for safe deliveries for mothers and babies,” Dr. Perlin adds. “Our teams are saving lives and vastly accelerating detection of sepsis through our Sepsis Prediction and Optimization of Therapy (SPOT) program, and we are providing leadership in safely curbing the opioid crisis on a number of fronts.”

HCA Healthcare’s senior leadership team is committed to supporting patient safety initiatives across the broader healthcare system overall. Dr. Perlin was on the panel of experts that produced the 2017 Leading a Culture of Safety: A Blueprint for Success report. This resource is organized into six leadership domains that assist in development and sustainability of a culture of safety:

1. Establish a compelling vision for safety
2. Build trust, respect, and inclusion
3. Select, develop, and engage your board
4. Prioritize safety in the selection and development of leaders
5. Lead and reward a just culture
6. Establish organizational behavior expectations

Dr. Kenneth Sands, chief epidemiologist and chief patient safety officer at HCA Healthcare, uses this framework to partner with regional leaders across the enterprise in advancing a culture of safety.

“Promoting a culture of safety is an extremely important topic for healthcare organizations  and it can be challenging for healthcare leaders to take action,” says Dr. Sands. “The Blueprint is an excellent resource in helping to advance our culture of safety at HCA Healthcare and guide healthcare safety everywhere.”

“One example that we use in our healthcare organization is to encourage open reporting of and safety discussions, and provide transparent, timely feedback,” adds Dr. Sands.

In our efforts to lead a culture of safety, HCA Healthcare encourages the reporting of errors, adverse events and close calls to promote a fair and just environment. As Dr. Sands noted, this includes an emphasis on having open safety discussions and providing transparent, timely feedback. We recognize and reward individuals who report safety concerns, and promote the development of a psychologically safe climate for reporting.

HCA Healthcare embraces opportunities to learn from the reporting of errors, adverse events and close calls. Close calls are events or situations that, only by chance, did not produce patient harm. Reporting of close calls allows facilities to intervene and correct weaknesses in processes or systems before harm occurs.

Recognizing great catches

This Patient Safety Awareness Week, we would like to recognize some of our facilities that have had great catches in the patient safety arena, below:

The stroke team at Parkland Medical Center celebrates a great catch

Methodist Hospital recognizes a great catch 

Two great catches identified and celebrated at Mercy Hospital

A great catch that saved a patient’s life at Fairview Park Hospital

Above all else, we are committed to the care and improvement of human life. We want to extend a special “Thank You” to all of our HCA Healthcare patient safety leaders for their unwavering commitment to safe, patient-centered care, this week and all weeks of the year.