Keeping the many new patient safety topics and initiatives fresh in the minds of frontline caregivers can be a challenge. To make sure staff members were thinking about a new aspect of safe patient care each month and educate both them and patients together about patient safety goals, Abington (PA) Memorial Hospital (AMH) started "Patient Safety First."
The initiative is a hospital-wide patient safety campaign that focused on behaviors and actions. Originally launched in 2008, staff members decided to continue and build on Patient Safety First after seeing success in its first year.
"It was a program to help us focus, inform, and partner with our employees and patients to get the patient safety message out," says Robert C. Giannini, NHA, safety/ quality specialist at AMH's Center for Patient Safety & Quality. "It's really letting staff and our patients be on the same page for the month."
In 2009, AMH has created communication strategies for internal staff use as well as some specific for patients. At the end of 2008, staff members planned out a full calendar year of topics for each month in 2009. That helped show staff members that this program is a part of the organization's underlying mission, says Giannini.
"We do change our goals based on our priorities for that year," says Giannini. "People are seeing that this isn't going away and it's part of our culture."
To really hit home the idea of changing behaviors to improve patient safety, Giannini and his staff members designed the campaign to be apparent in the everyday working environment. Depending on the theme of the month, the topic receives attention on screensavers, in the "nursing notes" internal newsletter, in educational pieces that are posted, and via patient safety coaches, who spread the theme to fellow caregivers.
The patient safety coaches meet each month to discuss new hospital initiatives. Patient safety coaches at AMH are frontline caregivers, who are unit based and will share a specific message with their colleagues.
"We do have safety coaches in each area of the hospital, and [the monthly Patient Safety First topic] would be part of the theme of the meeting that month," says Linda Mimm, RN, BC, DL, CPHQ, safety/quality specialist at AMH's Center for Patient Safety & Quality. "It's not just a piece of paper that goes out, it's a clear team effort getting the message out also."
Additionally, Giannini and his staff members ensure that hospital staff understand where each month's theme fits in with The Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goals as well as the organization's annual goals, he says.
Equally important to the success of this initiative has been the nursing department's ability to partner and plan with the finance department, says Elizabeth Medina, RN, BSN, CCRN, nurse manager for the cardiac surgery unit and cardiac intensive care unit at AMH. After all, nurses are a part of the frontline caregiving team that this initiative targets.
"We have a good support structure within the nursing department because we partner with finance," says Medina. "What gives us the capability to partner with things like this is we structure into our own unit budgets for the fiscal year training and orientation hours.
Patient education
Staff members in the quality/safety department develop patient education materials to alert patients to each monthly theme. For example, in January, patients received documents telling them that handwashing was a focus that month and asked them to be a partner in their own safe care. Other monthly themes have been medication safety, patient identification, increased communication among caregivers, and timely reporting of critical tests/results. In October, the hospital will focus on immunization.
Staff nurses introduce the monthly piece of education while they go over other important information about patients' stays.
"As we educate the patient, with all of the other education related to their admitting diagnosis, we also go over that piece of information as well," says Medina.
Overall, the initiative has helped the hospital as a whole incorporate many aspects of patient safety into patient care, and also hone in on specific topics. AMH has seen an increase in both staff and patient reports of concerns, suggestions, and patient safety events.
"Working in the safety/quality department, it really helps us focus as an organization on a theme," says Mimm.