Abstract
Healthcare Performance Improvement (HPI) improves reliability in healthcare by helping organizations achieve and sustain high performance outcomes in safety, quality, and satisfaction. Safety is the core value of the healthcare organization. Yet safety – protection from harm – doesn’t just happen. HPI provides a method for reducing the Serious Safety Event Rate through translating safety from a core value to specific behavior expectations of leaders, staff, and physicians. The HPI method and techniques are based on the best practices of high-reliability organizations (such as nuclear power and aviation) that get it right in safety. While healthcare has focused on traditional process improvement as a means to better outcomes, high-reliability organizations recognize that optimizing outcomes requires a concurrent focus on human behavior accountability. Our method focuses on preventing human errors and detecting and correcting system weaknesses that can lead to events of harm and unwanted outcomes.
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
1-29-2010
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2010 Center for Health Transformation. This chapter first appeared in Healing without Harm: 21st Century Healthcare through High Reliability.
DOI: www.healthtransformation.net/galleries/wp-hospital/CHTHealingwithoutHarm_v3.pdf
The Center for Health Transformation is a wholly owned subsidiary of WellStar Health System.
Recommended Citation
Johnson, Kerry, Randle D. Raggio, Carole Stockmeier, and Clarence S. Thomas, Jr. "Healthcare Performance Improvement and High Reliability: A Best Practice Methodology." In Healing Without Harm: 21st Century Healthcare through High Reliability, 17-26. Atlanta: Center for Health Transformation, 2010.