Presented By:  Allan Frankel, M.D.
January 2011

The fundamental propositions of this talk—and increasingly supported by research and the literature—is that a healthy patient safety culture is a foundation not only for greater safety but also reliability. Safety leads to a reduction in harm; reliability ensures that variation in care is minimized so that patients receive the right treatment at the right time in a known and reproducible manner. Ultimately healthcare organizations are going to be judged by metrics of reliability and achieving success will require concerted multidisciplinary effort—in other words, outstanding teamwork, leadership and improvement. This is feasible only when expectations of excellence are set as goals, and the attributes measured. (There is a simple rule to improvement—one cannot change what one does not measure.) This talk discuses how cultural surveys and other social metrics help identify where hospitals are vulnerable, enabling the allocation of resources to reducing risk and increasing reliability. This talk discuses how to produce a culture where teamwork and improvement skills are evident and observable, and in harmony with each other.

Objectives:

• Understand how to use measures of culture to improve the climates of safety and teamwork in their work environments
• Learn a framework for teamwork and leadership that is applicable to their clinical environments
• Be able to describe the key characteristics of good teamwork and clinical leadership.