From left to right, Dr. Joan Richardson, David Marshall, Dr. Karen Sexton, Dr. Dennis Gore, Dr. Valerie Parisi, and Jennifer Baer at the LifeWings Boot Camp in Nashville.
Hospital leadership looks to aviation industry to improve patient safety, care
By Jennifer Powell
FEB. 1, 2006--Nationally, there is a growing movement to improve patient safety and eliminate mishaps that can happen in a hospital. UTMB is striving to take the lead in this revolution, making the protection of patients a primary focus in all aspects of care. To aid in this process, UTMB has entered into a partnership with LifeWings, LLP, a patient safety consulting firm run by airline pilots. LifeWings is an innovative training program that translates aviation safety concepts into patient care.
"Using checklists and other standard procedures [from the aviation field] has produced dramatic and lasting improvements in patient safety everywhere the program has been fully implemented," said Stephen Harden, president of LifeWings.
Members of UTMB senior leadership have proven their commitment to developing a safety culture for the benefit of patients and staff by spending several days at “LifeWings Boot Camp” in Nashville, where the company is based. The “Boot Camp 6” consists of Jennifer Baer, Dr. Dennis Gore, David Marshall, Dr. Valerie Parisi, Dr. Joan Richardson, and Dr. Karen Sexton. They trained in aviation-based safety and its applicability to the hospital setting and even participated in a flight simulation. They are serving as the oversight committee for the project and have been intimately involved in the first phase of the rollout.
Since boot camp, the UTMB operating room became the first area to participate in the program, which is designed to enhance the communication and teamwork among staff to promote patient safety. The program is helping UTMB improve patient safety, increase efficiency, and enhance team effectiveness. Over the course of more than two months, all members of the operating room team—nurses, technicians, surgeons, and others involved in the OR—attended a full day of LifeWings training at Open Gates. During this training, all members of the operating room team were encouraged to think like a team, to give continuous feedback, and to focus on solving problems without placing blame.
“There's no room for mistakes in the operating room,” Sexton said, “However, medical research estimates that up to 100,000 hospital patients nationwide die every year as a result of human error, miscommunication and lack of effective teamwork."
The training served as the beginning for changes to take place in the coming months. Since August, several safety tools have been developed to help reduce the opportunities for human error.
Jan. 1 began the kick-off for the use of LifeWings tools in the OR. The first of these tools implemented was a time-out briefing that is more detailed than what was previously used in the operating room time-outs. It provides an extra step to make sure the operation being conducted is correct, with the correct equipment and medication, for the correct patient, and at the correct site on the person’s body. Reactions to this change from OR staff have been positive, and the continued rollout of error-prevention practices will produce dramatic and lasting improvements in patient safety at UTMB.
Looking forward, the desire is to establish a culture of safety within the UTMB hospitals and clinics, then beyond to research labs and the schools. It is a source of pride that UTMB is taking a leadership role in patient safety and quality of care. The goal of this initiative is to build a system that acts as a safety net to back up patient safety efforts and ensure that every opportunity is taken to keep patients safe.
While UTMB has outstanding people, any preventable accident or error is unacceptable. The intent of the program is to make the OR and UTMB the place where one can entrust the care of their most cherished loved one.
Jennifer Powell is a coordinator for the Patient Safety Program.