Perceived Value of the Daily Safety Briefing

A hospital-level daily safety briefing (DSB) is a time for leaders to come together and address recent and upcoming safety challenges in the hospital. As tools to facilitate communication and teamwork, DSBs are important, but their value has not been extensively studied. We studied the value of the DSB by means of a prospective written survey of participants of the DSB at an urban academic medical center. Participants were unit managers, directors, vice presidents, and various other hospital leaders.Ninety-seven of 114 participants completed the survey (85%). Of all the activities rated, preprocedural time-outs had the highest rating in terms of impact on patient safety (4.87 ± 0.50 on 5-point Likert scale). The DSB had a rating (4.44 ± 0.77) that was on par with The Joint Commission accreditation activities (4.47 ± 0.68) and higher than use of the Morse Fall Scale (4.10 ± 0.83). Overall, 95% of the participants felt that a DSB was an effective use of participants' time. The top two benefits of the DSB were keeping patient safety a focal point in the organization (4.54 ± 0.74) and increasing awareness about patient safety issues (4.52 ± 0.93).We conclude that the DSB improves communication among team members and is a valuable use of healthcare leaders' time.