Opinion: How every hospital should start the day

In the spring of 2013, Advocate Health Care, one of the largest U.S. health systems, banished all meetings between 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM and instead instituted mandatory hospital-wide leadership "huddles" to discuss safety issues. Most of these huddles take just 15 minutes and allow hospital leaders to develop situational awareness — a collective understanding of the state of operations — and report and anticipate safety events such as falls, medication errors, and delays in care. With the introduction of huddles, reports of safety events across Advocate's 12 acute-care hospitals increased by 40% (indicating improved detection) as staff members responded to leaders' commitment to safety and transparency, while safety events have continued to dramatically decrease.