Resources

In this webinar, Jennifer Gale answered the following questions:

Why you should worry about risk management - surely Risk management is the organisation's job or something you might see on a Strategic Plan, so why should risk management be everyone’s business?

What you should worry about first - in a complex health and care system there is so much to worry about so where on earth should you start without feeling overwhelmed?

How you can make sure you sleep at night - as a manager, team leader or director there are many things to do and worry about. How can you understand risk management enough so it doesn’t keep you awake at night?
 

Surgical site infections remain a problem despite many decades of research and practice change to eliminate those that are preventable. 

Approximately 0.5% to 3% of surgical patients develop an infection. Compared with patients undergoing surgery who do not have a surgical site infection, these patients are hospitalized approximately 7 to 11 days longer.   As we know, longer hospital stays increase the risk for patients and reduce hospital efficiency and effectiveness. Infections are the leading cause of re-admissions following surgery and can add thousands of dollars to the cost of an admission. 
 

In response to quality challenges highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Institute for Quality Improvement (IHI) has looked at how to increase the adoption of effective quality improvement (QI) practices in nursing homes in the United States. Despite the differences in regulatory requirements between countries, the findings are relevant for all involved with aged care: providers, managers, staff, policymakers and advisers.

Technological advances have opened new possibilities for improving patient safety. Using technology to digitize healthcare processes has the potential to increase standardisation and efficiency of clinical workflows, and to reduce errors and cost across all healthcare settings. However, if technological approaches are designed or implemented poorly, the burden on care providers can increase.

Care transitions, whether intrahospital or discharge to home or another care setting, are fraught with ‘Swiss cheese holes.’ As consumers move through different assessments, professions, wards, plans, and even funding structures, the danger of poor quality care, communication breakdown and consumer dissatisfaction is high. The authors argue that better incorporation of patients and carers in rounds, as done in children’s hospitals, can prevent some of these problems.

Checklist and guide for building sustainable change into your improvement planning from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

Overview of the system, key tools and skills required for improvement.

Guidance from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality on how to present data in a quality report. 

We think of consumer safety primarily in terms of physical harm. But consumers often conceptualise safety as ‘feeling safe’, as well as ‘being safe’.  

Violating a consumer’s emotional safety while avoiding physical harm is not yet embedded in consumer safety reporting. We know that consumers can experience emotionally harmful experiences as they navigate health services, such as: disregard for their opinion, not being listened to, rudeness and abuse. Are we doing consumers and families a disservice by ignoring or denying harm that doesn’t fit our organisational definition?

As a behaviour change strategy, education rarely achieves the desired result when used on its own. It’s ‛necessary but insufficient’ to effect lasting change. In the classic hierarchy of change effectiveness or the ‘action hierarchy’, education ranks as the least effective intervention, below new rules, policies and more system-focused categories such as forcing functions and automation. And yet, in most human services it continues to be the ‘go-to’ response to everything from accreditation recommendations to policy implementation.