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We all want to provide safe care, each and every time, for our patients but what happens when we face an obstacle to patient safety? What if an error was made or there’s a problem in the care system that could compromise patient safety? What if we’re scared of being blamed or punished

At TOH, we continue to build a positive atmosphere of openness and mutual trust, so that everyone can learn from errors and near misses and share information transparently. That’s why we’ve introduced “Sharing for Patient Safety” – a new column in the Journal, our employee newsletter. Every column will feature the story of a staff member or team talking about a challenge and what they did to overcome it to improve patient safety. These will be real challenges that affect our everyday health-care practice at TOH.

Let’s talk openly about patient-safety problems

Talking openly about what has gone wrong in patient care can feel very awkward. But TOH’s Senior Management Team is encouraging everyone to help change the culture by talking about problems so we can work towards solutions.

“When we talk about the challenges we face and talk openly and candidly about safety concerns, we can all learn from past events and work together to make changes for safer patient care,” said Dr. Jim Worthington, Senior Vice-President of Medical Affairs, Quality and Performance.

“As a physician, I’ve made errors and it is difficult to talk about that,” said Dr. Worthington. Nobody comes to work intending to do harm but we work in a complex and high-risk environment so when something does go wrong, the outcomes can be serious. Yet it’s critical that we use these opportunities to talk openly about what went wrong so we can prevent harm to other patients.

If things go wrong in one unit, they could also go wrong in others, he said. That’s why sharing what we learn and identifying gaps in the system of care are so important.

Dr. Worthington praised the Obstetrics, Gynecology and Newborn Care Department and the Anesthesiology Department for being pioneers in facing these issues and making changes.

Staff at TOH should use the Patient Safety Learning System (PSLS) to identify patient-safety events that require case review. And it’s also important to recognize and say “Thanks” to those who bring safety issues forward. The Patient Safety Star recognition program is one way of doing that.
But it all starts with talking.

“I encourage staff to speak up and bring issues forward,” said Dr. Worthington. “Know you will be heard and supported. Together we can all help make the care we provide safer.”

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