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Prioritizing Patient Safety
Patient safety is everyone's job! From administrators and environmental services to food services and industrial engineers, all aspects of healthcare impact safety. Jacqueline Baron-Lee, PhD, CPHQ, PMP, Director of Quality and Outcome Management at Shepherd Center, joins the podcast to discuss the importance of patient safety.
Featured Speaker:
Jacqueline Baron-Lee, PhD, CPHQ, PMP
Jacqueline Baron-Lee joined Shepherd Center as the Director of Quality and Outcomes Management in January 2021. Prior to joining Shepherd Center, she was the Quality Officer in the Neuromedicine Interdisciplinary Academic & Clinical Program (NICAP) at the University of Florida Health. She received a PhD in psychology from the University of Florida. Transcription:
Prioritizing Patient Safety
Caitlin Whyte: Welcome to Picking Our brain with Shepherd Center. I'm Caitlin Whyte. And today, we are discussing patient safety and how it's everyone's job. From administrators and environmental services to clinicians, case managers and industrial engineers, when asked what each person does at Shepherd Center, each role could easily answer," I help save lives."
So today, we are talking all about patient safety with Dr. Jacqueline Baron-Lee. She's the Director of Quality and Outcome Management. So can you tell us about how patient's safety is really the responsibility of so many different people in the hospital?
Jacqueline Baron-Lee, PhD, CPHQ, PMP: Yes, absolutely. So I love that you said that everyone's responsibility and I always say patient safety is everyone's job. So whether you're an administrator or a high-level manager or working in environmental services, even those folks who are in food services, those members of my team who are industrial engineers, as well as of course the clinicians, the physicians and nurses and therapists, our case managers, and even I would argue researchers, every member of the team has a different perspective and interacts with patients and their families different.
So each orientation has a different window into the lives and experiences of their patients from across the continuum of care. And each of them could, if asked, instead of saying, "I'm a researcher. I'm in quality outcome and management," they could answer, "My role is to help save lives," because it is that concept of, "If I see something that seems unsafe, I should say something." And again, anchoring in this mindset that patient safety is everyone's job is the mantra and the perspective that I want every person to feel empowered about.
Caitlin Whyte: Now, what are some of the top behaviors that improve that patient safety?
Jacqueline Baron-Lee, PhD, CPHQ, PMP: Right. So it's easy to say something like, "Well, work on patient safety." Well, how exactly do you do that? And I'm really big about having actionable specific behaviors. So knowledge being kind of the top one, right? So we need our clinicians and our researchers and our engineers, every person to be knowledgeable in their role, but also similarly have knowledge and a shared mental model of the concept of patient safety. So we're all on the same page and that knowledge is foundation.
Now, communication across all of those roles is also essential. So the kind of domain of communication is another top behavior. And despite being verbal creatures, we're not always the best at communication.
Transparency. So, you know, we'll talk a little bit about history of patient safety, but, you know, the movement towards lessened hierarchy and the sharing of ideas and information across roles, and even the outcome of the behaviors in a transparent way is an essential aspect of patient safety.
Having core systems, being another top behavior. And then finally, optimized processes. So again, whether and irregardless of the role, these are the top behaviors that we know improve patient safety.
Caitlin Whyte: Can you tell us about some of the differences between like these buzz words, quality assurance, compliance and regulation and quality improvement?
Jacqueline Baron-Lee, PhD, CPHQ, PMP: Yes. I love making the distinction, because it's a little confusing and it's confusing depending on what orientation you come from. So, you know, I would say quality improvement is the larger umbrella that includes concepts of quality assurance and compliance and regulation. But truthfully, the tradition in healthcare kind of more emerged from a compliance and regulation perspective. And I think in application, a lot of the times, our team members in healthcare kind of associate quality improvement with those compliance and regulation.
And let's be truthful, sometimes those areas, compliance and regulation, involves checking of instances of compliance, you know, that could be kind of viewed as not the most positive or maybe in compliance, out of compliance, kind of a negative kind of connotation, but really quality improvement is about continuous improvement, always improving, always changing. And of course, there's a bunch of different methodologies to do that. Whereas quality assurance, definitely an overlapping concept within compliance, you know, are you making certain that you are in compliance? That's a part of assuring those behaviors. But that could also be argued as a methodology within quality improvement.
So again, when I start to form relationships and build programs and projects centered around quality improvement, I want people to be thinking about quality improvement should be improving their lives as members of teams in a health center, but also the lives of patients and their families. And that's what makes it so fun.
Caitlin Whyte: And you mentioned this earlier, but how has patient safety and quality grown and changed and brought us to where we are now?
Jacqueline Baron-Lee, PhD, CPHQ, PMP: Yes. So we're definitely at a better place than what we were historically. And, you know, the many traditions and theoretical articles have taught us that initially we weren't necessarily putting that mirror in front of our face and examining our behaviors and outcomes and processes in the way that other industries like aviation and manufacturing were doing.
And the mid-'90s surge of those tests of argument and making it more of a priority were a great shift to prioritizing patient safety. And we've come a long way since the 1990s, but we're still not there. And I think what we need to, again, go back to the human element of patient safety quality.
We are all humans before we are anything else, before we're physicians or nurses or quality improvement geeks like me. If we can find those ways to connect and promote those behaviors I mentioned, shared knowledge, communication, the transparency of our work across each other, and borrow on a lot of those systems from manufacturing and others, we'll be in a great place as it relates to patient safety.
Caitlin Whyte: Great. Is there anything else we didn't touch on that you want to add to this conversation?
Jacqueline Baron-Lee, PhD, CPHQ, PMP: I just think that making certain that every one who listens to this podcast feels, if they're in healthcare, empowered to see the role despite maybe what they've been taught or what they've practiced, that they have in patient safety and, you know, get excited about the possibilities of the work that they can contribute and find that way that they can always be in a continuous improvement mindset, both in their practice and maybe through some projects or programs that they could develop.
Caitlin Whyte: Wonderful. Well, that's great to hear. Thank you so much for sharing all of this information with us. You can learn more about Shepherd Center at shepherd.org. This is Picking Our Brain with Shepherd Center. I'm your host, Caitlin Whyte. Stay well.
Prioritizing Patient Safety
Caitlin Whyte: Welcome to Picking Our brain with Shepherd Center. I'm Caitlin Whyte. And today, we are discussing patient safety and how it's everyone's job. From administrators and environmental services to clinicians, case managers and industrial engineers, when asked what each person does at Shepherd Center, each role could easily answer," I help save lives."
So today, we are talking all about patient safety with Dr. Jacqueline Baron-Lee. She's the Director of Quality and Outcome Management. So can you tell us about how patient's safety is really the responsibility of so many different people in the hospital?
Jacqueline Baron-Lee, PhD, CPHQ, PMP: Yes, absolutely. So I love that you said that everyone's responsibility and I always say patient safety is everyone's job. So whether you're an administrator or a high-level manager or working in environmental services, even those folks who are in food services, those members of my team who are industrial engineers, as well as of course the clinicians, the physicians and nurses and therapists, our case managers, and even I would argue researchers, every member of the team has a different perspective and interacts with patients and their families different.
So each orientation has a different window into the lives and experiences of their patients from across the continuum of care. And each of them could, if asked, instead of saying, "I'm a researcher. I'm in quality outcome and management," they could answer, "My role is to help save lives," because it is that concept of, "If I see something that seems unsafe, I should say something." And again, anchoring in this mindset that patient safety is everyone's job is the mantra and the perspective that I want every person to feel empowered about.
Caitlin Whyte: Now, what are some of the top behaviors that improve that patient safety?
Jacqueline Baron-Lee, PhD, CPHQ, PMP: Right. So it's easy to say something like, "Well, work on patient safety." Well, how exactly do you do that? And I'm really big about having actionable specific behaviors. So knowledge being kind of the top one, right? So we need our clinicians and our researchers and our engineers, every person to be knowledgeable in their role, but also similarly have knowledge and a shared mental model of the concept of patient safety. So we're all on the same page and that knowledge is foundation.
Now, communication across all of those roles is also essential. So the kind of domain of communication is another top behavior. And despite being verbal creatures, we're not always the best at communication.
Transparency. So, you know, we'll talk a little bit about history of patient safety, but, you know, the movement towards lessened hierarchy and the sharing of ideas and information across roles, and even the outcome of the behaviors in a transparent way is an essential aspect of patient safety.
Having core systems, being another top behavior. And then finally, optimized processes. So again, whether and irregardless of the role, these are the top behaviors that we know improve patient safety.
Caitlin Whyte: Can you tell us about some of the differences between like these buzz words, quality assurance, compliance and regulation and quality improvement?
Jacqueline Baron-Lee, PhD, CPHQ, PMP: Yes. I love making the distinction, because it's a little confusing and it's confusing depending on what orientation you come from. So, you know, I would say quality improvement is the larger umbrella that includes concepts of quality assurance and compliance and regulation. But truthfully, the tradition in healthcare kind of more emerged from a compliance and regulation perspective. And I think in application, a lot of the times, our team members in healthcare kind of associate quality improvement with those compliance and regulation.
And let's be truthful, sometimes those areas, compliance and regulation, involves checking of instances of compliance, you know, that could be kind of viewed as not the most positive or maybe in compliance, out of compliance, kind of a negative kind of connotation, but really quality improvement is about continuous improvement, always improving, always changing. And of course, there's a bunch of different methodologies to do that. Whereas quality assurance, definitely an overlapping concept within compliance, you know, are you making certain that you are in compliance? That's a part of assuring those behaviors. But that could also be argued as a methodology within quality improvement.
So again, when I start to form relationships and build programs and projects centered around quality improvement, I want people to be thinking about quality improvement should be improving their lives as members of teams in a health center, but also the lives of patients and their families. And that's what makes it so fun.
Caitlin Whyte: And you mentioned this earlier, but how has patient safety and quality grown and changed and brought us to where we are now?
Jacqueline Baron-Lee, PhD, CPHQ, PMP: Yes. So we're definitely at a better place than what we were historically. And, you know, the many traditions and theoretical articles have taught us that initially we weren't necessarily putting that mirror in front of our face and examining our behaviors and outcomes and processes in the way that other industries like aviation and manufacturing were doing.
And the mid-'90s surge of those tests of argument and making it more of a priority were a great shift to prioritizing patient safety. And we've come a long way since the 1990s, but we're still not there. And I think what we need to, again, go back to the human element of patient safety quality.
We are all humans before we are anything else, before we're physicians or nurses or quality improvement geeks like me. If we can find those ways to connect and promote those behaviors I mentioned, shared knowledge, communication, the transparency of our work across each other, and borrow on a lot of those systems from manufacturing and others, we'll be in a great place as it relates to patient safety.
Caitlin Whyte: Great. Is there anything else we didn't touch on that you want to add to this conversation?
Jacqueline Baron-Lee, PhD, CPHQ, PMP: I just think that making certain that every one who listens to this podcast feels, if they're in healthcare, empowered to see the role despite maybe what they've been taught or what they've practiced, that they have in patient safety and, you know, get excited about the possibilities of the work that they can contribute and find that way that they can always be in a continuous improvement mindset, both in their practice and maybe through some projects or programs that they could develop.
Caitlin Whyte: Wonderful. Well, that's great to hear. Thank you so much for sharing all of this information with us. You can learn more about Shepherd Center at shepherd.org. This is Picking Our Brain with Shepherd Center. I'm your host, Caitlin Whyte. Stay well.