|
FOR FURTHER READING
Featured Article |
|
 |
|
"Creating and Sustaining a Culture of
Safety"
by Stephen W. Harden,
Patient
Safety & Quality Healthcare
September/October 2008
|
|
NEWS TO USE:
In Implementing a CRM-based
Safety and Quality Improvement Program |
|
 |
|
The Joint Commission's
2009 National Patient Safety Goals include
major changes in three new hospital and
critical access hospital requirements
related to preventing deadly
healthcare-associated infections due to
multiple drug-resistant organisms (MDROs),
central line-associated bloodstream
infections, and surgical site infections.
Check out these related articles:
When bugs outwit drugs
September 7, 2008
by: Lim Wey Wen
Rising foe defies hospitals' war on "super
bugs"
September 17, 2008
by: Laura Landro
Medicare won't pay for hospital acquired
injuries
September 28, 2008
by: James Schlett
|
|
STEVE'S
BLOG |
|
 |
|
Check out
more thoughts, musings, and personal stories
from Steve Harden, President and co-founder
of LifeWings Partners LLC.
|
|
LIFEWINGS
HEALTHCARE SPEAKERS |
|
 |
|
Scheduled Events:
VHA
Teamwork and Patient Safety Track
October
16, 2008
Salt Lake City, UT
Managing Today's OR Suite (MTORS)
Sponsored by:
Karl
Storz Endoscopy
October
31, 2008
Washington, DC
Albany Medical Critical Care Nursing Conference
November
4, 2008
Saratoga Springs, NY
MAG Mutual Insurance Company Asheville Regional
Program
November 13, 2008
Asheville, NC
Joint Commissions' 22nd Annual Conference
November 20, 2008
Chicago, IL |
|
STREAMS IN
THE DESERT
Thoughts and Stories to
Inspire
|
|
 |
|
SUSTAINABILITY
by: Steve Montague
July's "Streams in the Desert" centered on the value of a
thematic goal as it related to Hardwired
Safety Tools designed to help tear down
silos. In joining together to achieve
mid-term objectives, new relationships are
forged and barriers are minimized. What
happens later on, after the dust has settled
and you've achieved your thematic goal? How
do you maintain the momentum?
In other words, what about sustainability?
[Read
Article]
|
|
|
|
SHARPENING THE SAW: A Message from Steve Harden,
President of LifeWings Partners LLC |
|
Measuring What You Manage 
We have all heard the old adage, "If
you can't measure it, you can't manage it." Most folks in healthcare strongly
believe in this concept. So it will come as
no surprise to you that when I speak to
healthcare executives about the work of
LifeWings, I am always asked, "How do you
measure this?"
I think what they are really asking is,
"What are the results we can expect to see?"
and "How can you document that?"
Consequently, we spend quite a bit of time
and effort helping hospital executive teams
create realistic data collection and
analysis plans to help them paint the
"before" and "after" pictures for their
teamwork-based patient safety initiatives.
Of course, by gathering and analyzing data
that builds the "after" picture, the client
can see in their
measurement tool if the
steps they are taking are actually changing
anything - are they hitting their
goal(s)? If not, they can
take
management action and change
or adjust the methodology to reach their
goal(s).
One common goal of most hospitals today is
getting great HCAHPS scores. CMS now
publishes the results of these patient
satisfaction survey scores on their web
site. What patients think about the care
they received in your hospital is now
available for the whole world to see on the
Internet. So, the
goal of the facility is
great patient satisfaction. The
measurement tool is the
satisfaction survey. What
management action should an
institution take if the satisfaction score
is not where they'd like it to be? [Read
More] |
|
LEADERSHIP TOOLKIT: Skills for Sustaining an
Enduring Cultural Change |
|
Using Safety Tools to Achieve Permanent
Results in High-Reliability Organizations
"With our healthcare system plagued by cost, quality,
 and access problems, hospital leadership has an
obligation to learn from other industries
that have achieved those quality and
productivity gains that deliver value to
knowledgeable customers." - Mike
Nichols, president of the American Society
of Quality in Milwaukee
Safety tools
are the solution to achieving consistently
safe outcomes in healthcare systems.
Tools "hardwire" the right behaviors into the daily
operating system by controlling the way
business is done. They help make the
complex, simple, thereby guaranteeing
reliable outcomes, rather than depending
upon "extraordinary" efforts from staff.
The increasing complexity of healthcare has
made the use of safety tools necessary.
Using standardized ways of working (e.g.
protocols, procedures, checklists) and
communicating make it less likely that
errors will occur and more likely that
inevitable errors will be caught before they
harm patients. Tools provide predictability
for caregivers working in teams. Knowing
one's specific job responsibilities and what
to expect from coworkers for each situation
makes it easier to focus on one's own job
while being able to back up and cross-check
other team members. [Read
More] |
|
SKILLS AND TOOLS: Get Better Today |
|
Developing and Implementing Safety Tools:
A nine-step plan to developing tools that
fix problems and keeps them fixed!
No matter how
comprehensive, applicable, integrated, and
well-delivered -- training alone cannot
create a safe system.
Providing trainees with personal skills, introducing the
concepts of teamwork, and using all
available resources are necessary to set the
stage for improvement. This will not,
however, change the ingrained behaviors of
the larger group. All high-reliability
organizations "proceduralize" safe
operations using specific tools - making it
easy to do the right thing and difficult to
make an error. [Read
More] |
|
SUCCESS STORIES: Reported Results from
Organizations Implementing LifeWings Patient
Safety and Quality Programs |
|
Creating and Sustaining a Culture of Safety
In 2004, The Nebraska Medical Center (TNMC) in
Omaha decided to boost their patient safety
efforts from very good, to great. A focus on
quality and safety was one of four CEO
leadership priorities, and was incorporated
into the hospital's strategic plan with full
approval of the Board.
"We want a
safer place to practice medicine with the
confidence that all steps necessary to
ensure our patients' safety to the highest
degree are taken into account for all
cases."
- Steve Smith, MD
Chief Medical Officer
The Nebraska Medical Center
Joining forces with LifeWings Partners, TNMC chose to
follow a five-point plan for creating and
sustaining an improved culture of safety.
Proving that disciplined leadership action,
effective interdisciplinary skills training,
use of site-specific safety tools that
hardwire behaviors, and program-guiding
measurement, CAN change and improve safety
culture, their successes are highlighted in
the September/October 2008 issue of
Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare.
[Read
Full Article] |
|
ASK THE INNOVATORS:
Road Blocks of Project Implementation |
|
Q.
At what point is the OB Time Out done
(before/after induction, pre/drape) and are
the nursery people present? The Joint
Commission's
2009 Patient Safety Goals recommend that
the Time Out take place ideally before
induction. Even if the Time Out is
done after induction prep/drape, when do the
nursery personnel arrive? Should they be
there for the Time Out?
A.
A Time Out should be performed prior to induction. Since
the whole team typically isn't assembled at
this point the anesthesiologist and nurse
should do a Time Out. Once the entire team
is assembled, including the nursery team,
then a more comprehensive Time Out should be
done. |
|
About Us
LifeWings Partners LLC was founded by a
former U.S. Navy
Top Gun instructor and commercial airline
pilot. The firm specializes in applying CRM
based teamwork training and safety tools to
help healthcare facilities save patients'
lives and reduce costs. LifeWings has helped
over 85 facilities nationwide provide better
quality care to their patients.
 |
|
|
Dear Recipient,
You are receiving this email from LifeWings
Partners LLC because either you subscribed
to our bi-monthly newsletter,
The Pulse, or
you expressed interest in receiving more
information about LifeWings. To ensure that
you continue to receive emails from us,
please add
dcolonna@saferpatients.com to your
address book today.
Should you receive this email in error or no
longer wish to receive our newsletter, you
may unsubscribe by following the
SafeUnsubscribe link
provided below.
Sincerely,
Dawn Colonna
Marketing/Public Relations
LifeWings Partners LLC
email:
dcolonna@SaferPatients.com
phone: 800.290.9314
web:
http://www.SaferPatients.com |
|
Sign up today and start receiving LifeWings Partners
bi-monthly e-newsletter or click the link
below to forward to a friend!
 |
|
|
