ABSTRACT
Objective: Promoting a culture of safety is a critical component of improving health care quality. Recognizing staff who stop the line for safety can positively impact the growth of a culture of safety. The purpose of this initiative was to demonstrate to staff the importance of speaking up for safety and being acknowledged for doing so.
Methods: Following a review of the literature on safety awards programs and their role in promoting a culture of safety in health care covering the period 2017 to 2020, a formal process was developed and implemented to disseminate safety awards to employees.
Results: During the initial 18 months of the initiative, a total of 59 awards were presented. The awards were well received by the recipients and other staff members. Within this period, adjustments were made to enhance the scope and reach of the program.
Conclusion: Recognizing staff behaviors that support a culture of safety is important for improving health care quality and employee engagement. Future research should focus on a formal evaluation of the impact of safety awards programs on patient safety outcomes.
Keywords: patient safety, culture of safety, incident reporting, near miss.
A key aspect of improving health care quality is promoting and sustaining a culture of safety in the workplace. Improving the quality of health care services and systems involves making informed choices regarding the types of strategies to implement.1 An essential aspect of supporting a safety culture is safety-event reporting. To approach the goal of zero harm, all safety events, whether they result in actual harm or are considered near misses, need to be reported. Near-miss events are errors that occur while care is being provided but are detected and corrected before harm reaches the patient.1-3 Near-miss reporting plays a critical role in helping to identify and correct weaknesses in health care delivery systems and processes.4 However, evidence shows that there are a multitude of barriers to the reporting of near-miss events, such as fear of punitive actions, additional workload, unsupportive work environments, a culture with poor psychological safety, knowledge deficit, and lack of recognition of staff who do report near misses.4-11
According to The Joint Commission (TJC), acknowledging health care team members who recognize and report unsafe conditions that provide insight for improving patient safety is a key method for promoting the reporting of near-miss events.6 As a result, some health care organizations and patient safety agencies have started to institute some form of recognition for their employees in the realm of safety.8-10 The Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority offers exceptional guidance for creating a safety awards program to promote a culture of safety.12 Furthermore, TJC supports recognizing individuals and health care teams who identify and report near misses, or who have suggestions for initiatives to promote patient safety, with “good catch” awards. Individuals or teams working to promote and sustain a culture of safety should be recognized for their efforts. Acknowledging “good catches” to reward the identification, communication, and resolution of safety issues is an effective strategy for improving patient safety and health care quality.6,8
This quality improvement (QI) initiative was undertaken to demonstrate to staff that, in building an organizational culture of safety, it is important that staff be encouraged to speak up for safety and be acknowledged for doing so. If health care organizations want staff to be motivated to report near misses and improve safety and health care quality, the culture needs to shift from focusing on blame to incentivizing individuals and teams to speak up when they have concerns.8-10 Although deciding which safety actions are worthy of recognition can be challenging, recognizing all safe acts, regardless of how big or small they are perceived to be, is important. This QI initiative aimed to establish a tiered approach to recognize staff members for various categories of safety acts.