Read the first blog in the series — The rise and stall of patient safety: Why 22 Years of Industry Effort Has Flatlined — here. The second in the series — The Human Factor: How to Align Patient Safety Technology with Healthcare’s Largest Complexity — is available here. 

“The growing body of literature on safety and error prevention reveals that ineffective or insufficient communication among team members is a significant contributing factor to adverse events,” write the authors of a 2008 study, set in the 477-bed medical center of the Denver Health and Hospital Authority, titled Improving Patient Safety Through Provider Communication Strategy Enhancements.

The study, which outlines the results of implementing a standardized communication framework and tools in an acute care clinical setting, provides a list of interrelated factors that commonly stand in the way of effective communication among health care professionals and negatively affect the overall culture of patient safety at health care organizations. Among these are the fact that health care facilities “have historically had a hierarchical organizational structure, with significant power distances between physicians and other health care professionals.” 

Read Next: Improving Patient Safety: 6 Ways to Move Beyond the Status Quo

This is echoed in Silos Mentality in Healthcare Services, a 2018 paper by Joao Alves and Raquel Meneses that was presented at the 11th Annual Conference of the EuroMed Academy of Business. “The functioning of complex organizations such as hospitals requires high levels of understanding and cooperation between professional groups with different professional pathways and expectations,” write Alves and Meneses. 

The impacts of the silo mentality on communication and patient safety 

As the title of the paper indicates, it is not uncommon for the relationship between different units, functions, and departments of healthcare organizations to be marked by the presence of a silo mentality. According to Alves and Meneses, a “silo mentality in healthcare can be defined as the set of individual or group mindsets that can cause divisions inside a health organization and that can result in the creation of barriers to communication and the development of disjointed work processes with negative consequences to the organization, employees and clients.” 

When present, a silo mentality limits or completely impedes information exchange, imperils efficiencies, and further exacerbates existing conflicts. This, in turn, can heighten stress among employees and contribute to overall job dissatisfaction. These will almost certainly impede any efforts to build a sustainable patient safety culture. Ultimately, with a decline in the quality of services, quality of care will be impacted and patient outcomes suffer. 

Countering the silo mentality in healthcare organizations

Improving Patient Safety: 6 Ways to Move Beyond the Status Quo, a recently published white paper from Origami Risk, outlines key elements in the creation and maintenance of an effective and sustainable patient safety culture. These include using standardized frameworks — for example, the communications framework detailed in the study, Improving Patient Safety Through Provider Communication Strategy Enhancements, referenced at the outset of this post. 

Read Next: How to select the right healthcare risk management solution for your organization

Also covered are ideas for the effective use of technology that enables the sharing of information, simplifies the process of reporting safety events, and provides a more comprehensive view of data from across the organization. As the white paper explains, “these elements all create a sense of inclusiveness that makes it more likely that staff is empowered to actively participate in the organization’s safety efforts and to see the positive effects of their participation.”

How Origami Risk can help
 

A single-platform healthcare risk management solution like Origami Risk can help to improve communication and contribute to a strong patient safety culture by breaking down silos, getting more people throughout the organization involved in adverse event intake, promoting data-sharing, and triggering follow-ups. Among the integrated features and functionality available in Origami are the following:

• Investigations & Root Cause Analysis (RCA) – 5 whys, fishbone diagrams, and other tools help to understand why incidents occur. Trackable action plans and assignments help drive change.
• Third-party integrations – Integrate with virtually any source, include with ADT/HL7 for patient data, in addition to interfacing with ERMs, lab systems (for infection control), pharmacy (formularies), and other systems.
• Patient Experience – Streamline entry of complaints, grievances, requests, and compliments — enabling the efficient management of entire case life cycles, from inception to resolution, to improve the patient experience.
• Rounding Tools – Automate rounding activities and scheduling with intuitive online/offline forms for EOC, leadership, staff, and patient rounds.
• Surveys & Assessments – Leverage industry standards or build surveys that enable participation from staff and patients in quality initiatives. Real-time analytics tools ensure quick identification of areas for action and improvement.
• Policies & Procedures – Administer policies and procedures in a single system, easily attach them to claims, incidents, RCAs, and other records, and automatically distribute updates throughout the organization
• Safety Huddles – Create safety huddle agendas, collect action items, and assign follow-up responsibilities. Web and mobile access improves communication and raises awareness of patient safety and quality concerns.

To learn more about how your organization can make a lasting impact on its communications and patient safety culture, start a conversation with us or download our latest healthcare white paper, Improving Patient Safety: 6 Ways to Move Beyond the Status Quo. In it, you'll learn about a six-point approach to patient safety and how the components are mutually beneficial.