ACCOUNTABILITY

To enhance quality of care, strengthen client safety protection and minimize costly medical errors, Bridge to Care staff should be accountable for achieving meaningful quality improvements and reporting potential safety risks maintaining Healthcare Quality.

The right approach allows healthcare professionals to feel empowered and protected when reporting concerns about potential risks and adverse events enhancing and safeguarding  the Integrity of Healthcare Quality and Safety Systems.”

“A strong safety culture is essential for any healthcare organization to maintain effective quality monitoring processes and ultimately preserve the integrity of healthcare quality and patient safety systems.

“In any given situation where quality or patient safety is called into question, the process by which an issue is raised is considered as important as the query itself. Not every concern about patient safety or quality of patient care will ultimately be deemed valid, but every reported concern deserves serious consideration. A culture that encourages such disclosures is critical to improved patient care.”

The “Call to Action” provides detailed recommendations adopting best practices to enhance provider institution quality, improve ongoing safety reporting and protect staff.

Bridge to Care is collaborated with several healthcare professional organizations in developing the recommendations

Create a focus on accountability for quality and safety as part of a strong and just culture: Educate employees continually about expectations for timely reporting of quality and safety concerns. Publicize ethical responses to errors and “good catches” through management praise, peer recognition and other techniques. Benchmark regularly by comparing the organization’s performance in responding to quality and safety concerns with peer organizations. Consider engaging patients and families to report their concerns and ideas.

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Ensure that protective structures are in place to encourage reporting of quality and safety concerns: Establish explicit policies that support error reporting and penalize reprisals in response to reporting. Respond, counsel and discipline as needed to ensure that egregious violators of policies regarding error reporting are not permitted to work or practice in the organization.

Ensure comprehensive, transparent accurate data collection and reporting to internal and external oversight bodies: Establish quality improvements so that data collected are applied to foster improvements in patient outcomes. Set policies that protect data integrity and communicate to clinicians any identified gaps in patient care processes.

Ensure effective responses to quality and safety concerns: Immediately investigate and respond to any adverse event, complaint or concern. Implement effective action plans to address vulnerabilities and gaps in quality and safety processes.