Patient safety culture transformation in a children's hospital: an interprofessional approach

In 2008, a children's hospital based in the Midwest of the USA launched a hospital-wide safety transformation initiative to improve the safety and quality of care resulting in a decrease in the number of critical safety incidents. In order to build on the early successes of the Hospital's safety program and further improve safety metrics, investigators developed a set of multi-pronged, interprofessional interventions designed to improve overall safety outcomes. The interprofessional interventions focused on didactic training, simulation exercises and safety rounding components. Study results indicate that the didactic portion of the study intervention was the most effective component in terms of safety behavior knowledge gained and satisfaction. The student groups had statistically significant higher post-didactic (86.2 versus 77.7, p < 0.001) and post-simulation (85 versus 81.8, p < 0.05) knowledge scores than did the staff groups. After gaining knowledge in basic safety training didactic instruction, students and staff maintained the knowledge gain throughout the study, but no significant knowledge gains were observed after simulation experiences and rounding with safety coaches. An overall increase in hospital metrics (all safety events) of the study year, compared retrospectively to the previous year, was observed. Investigators attribute the increase in the metric indicators to greater attention to reporting safety events.