Creating an integrated patient safety team.
CREATING A PATIENT SAFETY TEAM: In May 2001 Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston) created the Patient Safety Team, which was incorporated into the pre-existing safety and quality infrastructure. ESTABLISHING THE PATIENT SAFETY TEAM'S GOALS AND INITIATIVES: The goal was to create the safest possible environment for patients and staff by creating a culture of safety, increasing the capacity to measure and evaluate processes, committing to change unsafe processes, and adopting new technologies. To achieve this mission, the following initiatives were established: create a culture of safety, increase event identification, improve event analysis, close the feedback loop, assess risk proactively, improve medication safety, and involve the patient.


CONCLUSIONS
Integrating the Patient Safety Team into pre-existing committees and departments facilitated its work while helping to reinforce the multidisciplinary nature of safety efforts. It is critical that pre-existing groups feel that patient safety represents value added and is not a threat to their current roles.


CONCLUSIONS
If a patient safety strategy and team are to be effective, commitment from the organization's leaders is essential. This team should also work with individual departments and pre-existing quality structures to drive changes to the systems of care to enable health care to become as safe as possible.
Gandhi
Tejal K
TK
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, USA. tgandhi@partners.org
Graydon-Baker
Erin
E
Barnes
Janet Nally
JN
Neppl
Camilla
C
Stapinski
Carl
C
Silverman
Jon
J
Churchill
William
W
Johnson
Paula
P
Gustafson
Michael
M
D000046:Academic Medical Centers / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D001900:Boston; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D006801:Humans; D007324:Institutional Management Teams / Q000458:organization & administration*; D007857:Leadership; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D015279:Organizational Culture; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D018570:Risk Assessment; D017751:Safety Management / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013597:Systems Analysis