Leadership: 5 Keys for patient safety enhancement in healthcare

Safety in healthcare is the most important matter when it comes to patients and families. Due to the current post[1]pandemic era and the great resignation, healthcare was forced to transform itself to deliver better patient experience. But, post-pandemic is another story. Hospitals were affected by massive healthcare workers exiting medical field, new entry of healthcare workers coming in with online-based knowledge and without primary experience in clinical care. This trend endangered the safety of healthcare. Therefore, many hospitals and clinics are looking into the measures to enhance safety in healthcare. The question is always with 3W1H; who should be the one to lead the transformation? What is needed to be transformed? When shall there be transformation? And, how to transform into better patient safety experience?

In order to lead the organization towards patient safety, 5 key suggestions for patient safety enhancement in healthcare should be considered.

1.Mutual agreement from whole organization to be safe

 Organization as a whole, from C-levels to operational bodies, must mutually commit to creating the hospital to safe hospital using their best efforts and integrating with beyond-standard of care measures available. Without the mutual decision making as one organization, you can foresee the cracks in safety care deliveries. In order to lead this mutual agreement, top-down leadership should be avoided. SMART mutual goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) created by each touch point with high[1]level support will empower the team to commit for the safety experience development.

2. Digital transformation towards safer experience

 Post-pandemic reshaped the society to become digitalized. Manpower especially healthcare workers are suffering with overloaded amount of patients and leaders must find better solutions to care for those who are taking care of others. Digital transformation will also allow healthcare workers to liberate themselves from multiple unrelated tasks to perform better safety care including patient bed-side care. Point-of[1]care testing (POCT) can have a big benefit to medical staff and also prevent unnecessary mistakes due to personal input of the medical data. Therefore, leaders should seek the best solution that fits to the usage of the healthcare workers which deliver better safety patient experience. 

3. Safety Experience Design

In order to deliver the best safety, all stakeholders including doctors, nurses, laboratory scientists, and more related teams should gather together to design using their multi-disciplinary expertise towards safety experience. Safety experience should be able to exhibit safety actions that organization conducts for taking care of patients and relatives. The actions to create safety experience will leverage the trust of patients with treating hospital.

4. Hearing Customers

 ‘No one can tell how the patient feels unless he/she was one.’ Customers are the one who we shall be focusing on hearing to ensure that the services, treatment, safety measures we are conducting are in place. Hearing out the customers will lead to the perception perspective of patients on care, safety and more. Healthcare leaders should utilize the patient feedbacks to improve their imperfections. Apart from detailed information on operations obtained, customers’ perceptions are reformed into the care appreciation for hearing customer proactively. This increases trust in hospital provision on safety.

5. Continuous Quality Improvement

In order to become the best-in-class for safety healthcare provider, leaders should engage and lead the ‘no one’s perfect’ mentality. Continuous improvement is prime key for better safety enhancement as well as leverages the patient experiences. Continuous Quality Improvement team should be established to ensure that the hospital services are being aligned with what we commit to safety experiences. The Continuous Quality Improvement should be initiated from those fronting the works. This is not limited to the frontline services but also include the back office to create seamless care services.

As leadership plays a vital role in safety experience, safety enhancement, leaders should focus on delivering safe and pleasant experiences to patients, relatives, as well as healthcare workers. Community Safety Enhancement comprise of those who devote themselves to care for those who need the care, are also advised.