Announcer: ForCast is a podcast intended to provide information only on certain risk management topics, and is not to be construed as providing legal, medical, or professional advice of any form whatsoever. Because federal, state and local laws vary by location, nothing in this podcast is intended to serve as legal advice or to establish any standard of care. Legal advice if desired, should be sought from competent counsel in your state. The views or opinions expressed by the guest do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of OMSNIC or its subsidiaries.

Bill Klaproth (host): Hello and welcome to ForCast, a podcast brought to you by Fortress, a malpractice insurance company owned and operated by dentists. The name
ForCast reflects Fortress' commitment to protection in their investment in reducing risk by forecasting future outcomes through past experiences and expert insights. I'm your host, Bill Klaproth, and today Suzanne Moy joins me to talk about safety huddles, a risk mitigation strategy that we hope dentists consider incorporating into their practice. Suzanne, thank you so much for joining us. Can you give us some background on what a safety huddle is from a risk manager's perspective?

Suzanne Moy, CPHRM, MBA: Yeah, absolutely. So safety huddles are meant to be just brief meetings that staff can have in the outpatient office or they're called very different things, you know, in different healthcare settings, like hospitals may call it something different. But it's a way to just kind of focus everybody for the day on safety. You can address maybe a few things that are important for that day, when it comes to the schedule, procedures that you have scheduled and things like that. When I worked in the hospital world as a risk manager, they called the morning huddle, a flash meeting because it was really a very quick over in a second flash meeting, and it really just focused everybody on the day.

And we know that in healthcare, communication breakdowns; they remain a contributing factor of all types of medical errors. And these morning, you know, staff safety huddles can really be an efficient way that you can share critical information for the day. You can be proactive and maybe flag some safety concerns or some challenging patients. You can also empower and engage your staff and it's really just a good quick meeting to focus the whole team on patient safety, for that day. So it's a daily huddle.

Host: Well, that all sounds great, but I'm wondering if our listeners are thinking, that
sounds like a lot to cover in a huddle. So how long is a huddle meant to be?

Suzanne Moy, CPHRM, MBA: Yeah, it does seem like a lot, especially as a risk manager. We talk about safety like, very comprehensively, but it can really be as short or as long as you decide best for your practice. You know, maybe a 10 to 15 minute meeting at the beginning of each day is all the time that you have. And it helps to have an agenda of like three to five things that you know, you want to get discussed or addressed that morning. So that helps keep it within that timeframe that you decide is best for your practice.

Host: So how do you choose, how do you know what needs to be discussed at the
huddle?

Suzanne Moy, CPHRM, MBA: So that's a great question. And every practice is going to be different, depending on their structure and the types of challenges that they are seeing in terms of safety. So they really want to look at that and consider, what are the top three topics that are huddle worthy. I recommend that a practice focus on their most common challenges, whether it be staffing or something specific to their patient population. Maybe a practice is having struggles with getting the necessary information from referring providers. That's something that can be a topic on the agenda, especially, we know that OMS offices don't always get exactly everything that they want from a referring provider. So that can definitely be something. If they're struggling with that, they can add that to their agenda. If they have an influx of patients maybe that are requiring translation services, for example, sometimes it's staffing. It really just depends on what that practice is challenged with. And that's kind of what makes safety huddles great because they are unique to that practice. They should be unique to that practice.

Host: Yeah, that makes sense. But what if an office feels like a routine weekly or monthly staff meeting is all that is needed? What then?

Suzanne Moy, CPHRM, MBA: Well, and again, a typical staff meeting, that might be a once a month thing, maybe a once a week thing. Whereas a safety huddle is really meant to be more routine. That daily 10 to 15 minutes. It is up to every provider and the practice to determine what works best for them. But over the years, working in risk
management, I can tell you that, just that brief meeting daily, makes a big difference. It kind of helps everybody focus in on safety for the day. It's just a great way to know what the day's challenges are and you're covering the main things that you need to cover for that day as opposed to a department meeting where you're kind of catching up on a lot of things, giving staff updates and things like that for the whole month. So there's no wrong way to implement a huddle. But I would suggest that each practice, consider that separately, than a department meeting. Because it is different. It's a different format.

Host: I could see where a daily check-in would be good, and it affords someone the opportunity to ask a question and get it answered as well, if you do it daily. So that seems to make sense. So then who should be the leader of the huddle? Or, does it matter?

Suzanne Moy, CPHRM, MBA: Oh, and of course, risk managers like myself will always suggest that the doctor lead the huddle. However, you know, we know that that does not always make sense for the practice. So, if a practice has an office manager or an administrator, that person may be best as the leader for the daily huddle. If a practice is just starting to implement a safety huddle, I would recommend that either the doctor or the office manager, administrator really takes the lead on those beginning meetings so that they can show how they want that meeting to be run, before they designate that to someone else.

So let's say you have a staff person in your office that's just really a safety champion. He or she is just always bringing stuff to your attention. Maybe they have good catches and near misses, preventing adverse events in the office. That might be a safety champion in your office, and maybe that person would be great to run those morning huddles. So it really just depends on as a practice, who is in that best position to do that morning huddle.

Host: So I would imagine you might run into this now and then, what if a staff member attempts to use that huddle time to complain and air grievances potentially about things like staffing? What's your advice for doctors and office leaders when that happens?

Suzanne Moy, CPHRM, MBA: So that can happen of course, and it's important that staff are educated ahead of time about expectations for the huddle. These are the things that the huddle is for. These are the things that the huddle's not for. So if staff are bringing up concerns or complaints that are not related to the items on the agenda, for example, they should be encouraged to schedule a separate time either with their supervisor or maybe a separate team meeting, to go ahead and discuss concerns that they have.

I do know that in my experience; designating specific staff to participate in the huddle can really help in settings where there's a lot of staff. Every single staff person does not
have to be in that 10 to 15 minute huddle. Maybe you have a group of staff that then take that information from the huddle and share it with the rest of the staff. And that can really help it be a little bit more controlled, less people, the less chances for disruption.

Host: Right. So Suzanne, you've done a great job of explaining the benefits and importance of a daily huddle. What would you say to those that still do not see the value
in a formal daily huddle?

Suzanne Moy, CPHRM, MBA: I would probably say maybe they need to look at how they're doing that. Because I do think safety huddles, of course, they don't sound very
exciting. They're not very glamorous, of course, but I do believe that prioritizing those little short safety huddles can help build a culture of safety in the practice. Not only does it show the whole entire office team that you are focused on safety, their safety, and the patient's safety, but it can also help really build a culture of teamwork, collaboration and, really just focus everybody in on this is a priority in our practice. You know, safe patient care is a priority and I've seen where safety huddles have helped practices prevent adverse events.

There's things like maybe there's a pending or a late lab result or you haven't gotten the results on a biopsy yet. That's something that can be a standing agenda item in the morning. What are the cases we need to follow up with the lab on because sometimes what can fall through the cracks and then you're not getting the results in a timely manner and that can lead to an adverse event. Same thing with like medical consult responses. Are you waiting to hear back from a cardiologist, for example? Really those can be very helpful to address in those morning
huddles. And again, I think if you're really focusing in on the safety and not making the morning huddle about other things, then I do see it can be very beneficial.

Host: Yeah, it just seems to make sense. And Suzanne, this has really been, I think, beneficial and interesting, and I think you've done a great job, again, of explaining the benefits and importance of having a safety huddle. So thank you again for talking to us about this great risk mitigation strategy. Suzanne, thank you for your time. We appreciate it.

Suzanne Moy, CPHRM, MBA: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Host: Once again, that is Suzanne Moy talking about a great risk mitigation strategy. And if you have questions for the patient safety and risk management department of Fortress, call 800-522-6675. That’s 800-522-6675 or you can email them. RM@Fortressins.com. That's RM@Fortressins all one word .com. This is ForCast brought to you by Fortress. Thanks for listening.

Announcer: Not familiar with Fortress yet? Fortress offers unmatched protection and defense exclusively for dentists. Visit our website, dds4dds.com. That's DDS, the number 4, DDS to learn more. Policy holders have access to exclusive complimentary risk management resources, such as informed consent forms and on-demand CE courses.