Safety Culture Transformation Study

Purpose of Presentation: To address a critical element of patient care, safety-the need for health professionals to communicate effectively the provision of patient centered care. Background/Significance: According to the 1999 Institute of Medicine report To Error is Human, between 44,000 and 98,000 patients die each year due to medical errors. The literature is abundant with examples of communication failures among health professionals and how that adversely affects patient care.The West Michigan Interprofessional Education Initiative, led by Grand Valley State University, was created in response to the core competencies established for health professionals by the Institute of Medicine. An important patient care outcome is safety. Helen DeVos Children\u27s Hospital (HDCH), a member of Spectrum Health, addressed the culture of safety within this setting. Patient Safety behaviors were developed as part of a safety transformation initiative to improve the safety and quality of our community\u27s health care. Hospital-wide training for all employees was undertaken and in the two years since the training was implemented there has been a significant decrease in the defined safety dashboard incidents. The safety program research builds on the work at HDCH, and the West Michigan Interprofessional Education Initiative team\u27s work on providing interprofessional education learning experiences to health professions students. Methodology: The specific aims are to (a) evaluate the effectiveness of simulation and safety rounding on basic safety behavior knowledge (communication) and satisfaction with selected learning experiences of students and staff on a 24 bed unit in the 206 bed children\u27s hospital; (b) to determine the effect of the safety program on select indicators on the safety dashboard for the pilot unit which include 1) the number of serious safety events rate; 2) the number of incident reports; 3) the precursor to serious safety event rate ratio. Results: The current proposal is developed as a component of an educational and practice partnership to promote patient safety education and interprofessional practice by Grand Valley State University in partnership with Helen DeVos Children\u27s Hospital, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and Grand Rapids Medical Education Partners. This educational safety program will be for undergraduate nursing, phYSician assistant students, third year medical students, residents and clinicians on the pilot unit. Conclusions: We are anticipating that the study will assist in filling a gap in the literature on the evaluation of safety content through the use of simulation, that there will be increased satisfaction by the students and staff, and the knowledge gained will increase safety behaviors thus improving patient care