Improvement in Huddle Participation Among the Child Health Patient Safety Organization

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Patient Safety
• Healthcare Quality Improvement
• Cross-institutional Collaboration

Background:

• Preventable harm in pediatric settings necessitates improved inter-organizational learning.
• The Child Health Patient Safety Organization implemented weekly safety huddles to foster situational awareness and a protected learning network.
• The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act provides a framework for such safety initiatives.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the content and engagement trends of weekly safety huddles.
• To assess the impact of targeted interventions on huddle participation and reporting.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of safety huddles in strengthening a learning organization and safety culture.

Main Methods:

• An iterative time-series quality improvement study design was employed.
• Weekly huddle content was analyzed, and interventions were implemented to boost participation.
• Composite engagement (≥80% attendance, ≥5 reports) was the primary outcome measure, with secondary measures including attendance rates and reporting frequency.

Main Results:

• Targeted interventions significantly increased composite engagement from 21% to 71.4%.
• Improvements were observed in weekly attendance rates and quarterly reporting frequency.
• Commonly reported events included medication errors, diagnostic inaccuracies, and device malfunctions.

Conclusions:

• Child Health Patient Safety Organization safety huddles effectively enhanced participation and supported shared learning.
• The initiative strengthened the overall safety culture, aligning with principles of learning organizations and high reliability.
• Huddle insights were utilized by organizations for internal risk assessments and escalating critical concerns.