Applying the High Reliability Health Care Maturity Model to Assess Hospital Performance: A VA Case Study

The lack of a tool for categorizing and differentiating hospitals according to their high reliability organization (HRO)-related characteristics has hindered progress toward implementing and sustaining evidence-based HRO practices. Hospitals would benefit both from an understanding of the organizational characteristics that support HRO practices and from knowledge about the steps necessary to achieve HRO status to reduce the risk of harm and improve outcomes. The High Reliability Health Care Maturity (HRHCM) model, a model for health care organizations' achievement of high reliability with zero patient harm, incorporates three major domains critical for promoting HROs-Leadership, Safety Culture, and Robust Process Improvement ®. A study was conducted to examine the content validity of the HRHCM model and evaluate whether it can differentiate hospitals' maturity levels for each of the model's components.

Staff perceptions of patient safety at six US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals were examined to determine whether all 14 HRHCM components were present and to characterize each hospital's level of organizational maturity.

Twelve of the 14 components from the HRHCM model were detected; two additional characteristics emerged that are present in the HRO literature but not represented in the model-teamwork culture and system-focused tools for learning and improvement. Each hospital's level of organizational maturity could be characterized for 9 of the 14 components.

The findings suggest the HRHCM model has good content validity and that there is differentiation between hospitals on model components. Additional research is needed to understand how these components can be used to build the infrastructure necessary for reaching high reliability.