Prioritizing patient safety unites and empowers OR team—Part 1
Communication breakdowns in the perioperative environment are a factor in 70% of events that adversely affect patients. Sometimes those breakdowns occur because OR staff are reluctant to voice their concerns in an environment that is hierarchical and intimidating. However, when an organization adopts patient safety first (PSF) initiatives, adverse outcomes…
Joint Commission: New blog post examines steps for developing a reporting culture
Editor's Note A new blog post featured in the Joint Commission’s "High Reliability Healthcare" examines four essential steps for developing a reporting culture and why they are important. The steps are: Establish trust: Leaders should help create personal responsibility by establishing clear performance expectations for employees in an environment where…
Joint Commission issues new Sentinel Event Alert on developing a reporting culture to improve safety
Editor's Note The Joint Commission on December 10 issued a new Sentinel Event Alert on developing a reporting culture to improve healthcare safety systems. The alert explores guidance to eliminate fear of negative consequences for those reporting mistakes and unsafe conditions in their organizations. The alert also encourages learning from…
2018 OR Manager Conference hit all the right notes in Nashville
Music City welcomed 1,400 perioperative nurse leaders who attended the annual OR Manager Conference in September. A wealth of educational opportunities and a cultural extravaganza—including regional cuisine and the OR Manager’s Night Out at Nashville’s Musicians Hall of Fame—made the 31st conference a particularly memorable one. Volume and value…
Without a culture of clarity, employees and managers won’t succeed
Editor's Note Whether the problem is turnover, incivility, low patient scores, or managers who don’t know how to give direction, all have the same root cause−lack of a culture of clarity, the September 3 SmartBrief reports. The author gives three examples with lack of clarity at the root and how…
Joint Commission implementing survey improvements on assessing safety culture
Editor's Note The Joint Commission on June 13 announced that starting this month it will be implementing survey process improvements for how it assesses safety culture in hospitals and critical access hospitals. Improvements will be implemented for all other programs by October. Among the process improvement expectations: An organization will…
Constancy: The key ingredient for safe patient care
When errors occur, sometimes with devastating consequences, healthcare leaders often perform a root cause analysis (RCA) to prevent a recurrence. Understanding what happened is an important step in the recovery process. It’s also important to realize the effect of a sentinel event on healthcare providers—those “second victims” who find themselves…
Pledge makes positive culture a priority in the OR--Part 3
This article is the third in a three-part series by Joe Tye, chief executive officer and head coach, Values Coach Inc, and Bob Dent, senior vice president, chief operating and chief nursing officer at Midland Memorial Hospital in Midland, Texas. Part 1 was published in March (pp 19-21, 27) and…
Pledge makes positive culture a priority in the OR--Part 2
One of the most misunderstood and misused management buzzwords is “empowerment.” It is a noble thought that a manager can empower an employee, but only you can empower yourself, and once you have done that, no one can take that power away from you. Trying to empower someone who looks…
Bullying: From conflict to confrontation to civility in the OR--Part 3
When Carol Schneider, MSN, RN, CCRN, CPAN, became manager of a postanesthesia care unit (PACU) at Boston Medical Center in Massachusetts, she found a plethora of problems, including poor communication skills, low employee engagement scores, and bullying from surgeons and staff. “It was a very bad climate that was putting…
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