When you enter a primary care health center or medical practice, you hope to be welcomed, to be able to express what goes wrong, to be listened to and understood. You expect to find a solution rather than another problem.
When you are a healthcare professional - like everyone else and especially if the workday is long - you (will eventually) make (a) mistake(s), you are exposed to lapses and slips. It is useless to ignore it, we’re better off facing it, speaking about it and looking for solutions.
To identify such medical errors and to correct them before leading to damage for yourself - but also for the healthcare professional. How can both sides feel more confident and safer? How can we build healthier and safer care facilities?
This issue is running through the whole health system. It concerns equally the hospital and ambulatory care as well as the crossings and navigation from one to the other.
As early as 2007, the international experts of the Lucian Leape Institute in the USA had pointed the way and advocated a deep change in the culture of healthcare systems.
They proposed 5 levers of action:
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Medical education must be redesigned to prepare new physicians and other health professionals to function in these new cultures.
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Care must be delivered by multidisciplinary teams working in integrated care platforms.
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Healthcare workers need to work in safe environments and to find both joy and a deeper meaning in their everyday work
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Patients must become full partners in all aspects of designing and delivering healthcare.
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Transparency must be a practiced value in everything we do.
This roadmap for a culture change is still relevant in 2019.
It is a big challenge, but we can start with small changes, easy to implement in daily practice.
This video has no other ambition than giving a few examples of very simple, more cooperative and humane practices.
Some small steps to build a safer environment
Link to video: https://youtu.be/CsVZKyq1jIo
Published on 27 March 2019.
