Name
#170 - Implementation of Tiered Safety Huddles for Inpatient Nursing Units at a Veterans Affairs Hospital
Date & Time
Tuesday, February 13, 2024, 12:00 PM
Description

Safety Huddles are focused daily organizational meetings where teams identify, report, and prioritize potential risks of the day and review past events for action, closure, and learning. Safety Huddles are highly effective for improving communication and teamwork within teams and across departments. Before the implementation of this initiative, Jesse Brown VA Medical Center did not have consistent or standardized unit-level safety huddles nor a tiered huddle system that allows for communication from front-line staff to reach the executive leadership team or the enterprise-level attention. A standardized huddle board and daily huddle process were established for the facility with executive leadership approval. The huddle boards contained a daily readiness section with the following categories: Safety, Methods, Equipment, Supplies, and Staffing (S+MESS); a section for Announcements and Celebrations; and a continuous process improvement (CPI) section to discuss potential improvement projects. Implementation followed a phased roll-out, with the HRO team meeting with the individual unit managers to discuss logistics, identifying and training super-users, and coaching the teams during huddles. The unit-level (Tier 1) safety huddles were implemented for the inpatient nursing units from August 2022 to January 2023. Subsequently, the Associate Chief Nurse (Department Director for Inpatient Nursing Units) had a Tier 2 huddle established in February 2023. Finally, the Associate Director for Patient Care Services (Chief Nursing Officer) Tier 3 huddle was established in April 2023. An evaluation of the Engineering work orders generated by the inpatient units was conducted, to determine if the daily huddles improved communication and inter-departmental teamwork between Nursing and Engineering. The number of days to close work orders decreased significantly from a mean of 5.7 days to 3.4 days (p < .05) after huddle implementation. Improvements in the VA Patient Safety Culture Survey scores from 2022 to 2023 were also noted for the inpatient nursing units. Improvements in safety culture are likely the result of the implementation of a comprehensive framework of HRO, which includes Tiered Safety Huddles. Finally, employees continue to offer positive feedback about the improved communication, teamwork, and efficiencies noted because of the huddles.

Location Name
Prince Georges Exhibit Hall A/B
Content Presented on Behalf of
VHA/VA
Learning Outcomes
1.Describe Tiered Safety Huddles and how they facilitate the creation of a safety culture and reinforce High-Reliability Organization (HRO) principles.<br />
2.Recognize the importance of implementing a standardized huddle process to improve communication of key issues to promote daily readiness and patient safety.<br />
3.Define the key points and categories discussed during the huddle for daily readiness (S+MESS).<br />
4.Explain the impact of daily huddles on the efficiency of closing Engineering work orders for inpatient nursing units.<br />
5.Describe the impact of daily huddles on safety culture across the inpatient nursing units.
Session Type
Posters