Biological risk management Consulting

Creating high reliability Organization management expertise

 

​implementation


How do you organize to become an HRO?


Call us for a no obligation consultation on the process, to discuss where you are today and what you hope to achieve. 


As Mark Chassin, President and CEO of The Joint Commission, notes  "Making substantial progress toward high reliability in safety and quality requires the application of tools ... that can generate extremely high rates of sustainable improvement when applied to the poorly performing safety processes that exist in most hospitals today ... We know of no other approach to process improvement available at present that is capable of generating and sustaining rates of improvement of this magnitude consistently over the widest array of areas—from clinical quality to business processes."


The principal steps are:

  • New safety vision:  The first step is for the executive leadership to define what safety should look like, to communicate this to the organization and obtain buy-in to the new, safe organization from everyone
  • New facility, equipment and technology (FET):  Once the new vision of safety has been agreed, expert teams should identify whether the existing FET is appropriate for operations in the new, safe way of operating and, if not, what changes or additions are needed.
  • New SOPs & work processes:  Then new Standard Operating Procedures and work processes have to be developed for operating the new FET safely.
  • New project management:  A master plan must be developed for implementing the change from the old FET and way of doing things to the new FET and processes.  This will include plans for the purchase, installation and commissioning of any new FET, and training of personnel in the new SOPs and work processes.
  • New performance management:  New job descriptions have to be developed for everyone working in the new system.
  • Maintaining a Safety Culture requires continual improvement.  This, in turn, requires that performance be accurately measured, and outcomes measured against plans and expectations.  Near misses and accidents are examined through After Action Reviews for lessons to be learned.  The aim is not just to exceed a safety target, or to get to zero 'Never Events', but to eliminate even the lead-ups to accidents.