Experience of learning from everyday work in daily safety huddles-a multi-method study

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Improvement Science
• Patient Safety Research
• Organizational Psychology

Background:

• Traditional healthcare improvement (Safety-I) focuses on errors.
• Emerging approach (Safety-II) emphasizes learning from positive events.
• Daily safety huddles are a common practice for learning in healthcare.

Purpose of the Study:

• To implement and evaluate a Safety-II-inspired model for daily safety huddles.
• To assess the impact on patient safety culture measurements.
• To explore staff experiences with Safety-II huddles and everyday work.

Main Methods:

• Multi-method approach combining quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (interviews) data.
• 151-item questionnaire administered across four time points.
• Thematic content analysis of interviews (n=14) and open-ended questionnaire responses.

Main Results:

• No significant differences in most patient safety culture metrics.
• A slight decrease in reporting near-misses was observed.
• Staff found integrating Safety-II concepts challenging, particularly articulating positive events, despite general support for huddles.

Conclusions:

• Effective Safety-II huddles require an open, permissive climate and interprofessional participation.
• Stable management conditions are crucial for successful implementation.
• Managerial support and facilitator knowledge of Safety-II theory are important for learning from both positive and negative events.