Patient Safety Academy

We're hosting a patient safety conference in March 2018 for those in the Thames Valley region! 🎉👩‍⚕️👨‍⚕️🎉 Find the details here!
https://www.patientsafetyacademy.co.uk/news

One of our followers just sent us this interesting article - making the point that a simple and automatic response to a question can have important consequences.

Innocence and experience – sorry, I don’t know Unless I am 100% sure that it is the left kidney, surely I should ask before I remove the wrong one, or prescribe the wrong medicine or convey the wrong information.

If you're looking for a way to start a root cause analysis (which will usually become a root causes analysis, as there's seldom only one cause of a problem) the 5 Whys technique can be a great way to start. It reminds you to keep looking to deeper levels to find the actual cause/causes rather than just ending up with an explanation of what happened. In human factors/ergonomics (HFE) we often find ourselves going beyond only 5 to get further into events (and starting to sound like an obstinate toddler!😀)
Here's a quick introduction!

5 Whys - Wikipedia 5 Whys is an iterative interrogative technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem.[1] The primary goal of the technique is to determine the root cause of a defect or problem by repeating the question "Why?" Each answer forms the basis of the next quest...

Our HF research assistants Natalie (r) and Jane (l) have been into theatre to observe surgeries for the first time this week - and loved it! 😷😃
We're looking at workload for various surgical staff linked to a project we're helping with on the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist. It'll mean a lot more time in theatre for these two over the next few weeks!

We've had a very busy week that has included our members:

👩‍🏫 introducing healthcare professionals in Stoke Mandeville and Salisbury to human factors - and getting some great feedback about the improvement projects they now feel they can start 👨‍⚕️

👩‍⚕️ working with a GP practice to improve their work systems ⚕️

🇿🇦 putting together a human factors course for doctors in South Africa 🏥

💻 writing up previous projects ☕

🇨🇳 & jetting off to China for some international collaboration! ✈️

We're looking forward to a relaxing weekend now! Have a great one everyone! 😎

We've really enjoyed seeing all the posters and hearing all the presentations put together by Foundation Year 2 doctors from Oxford Uni Hospitals at the Quality Improvement Symposium today. They've been hard at work on many valuable quality improvement projects over the last few months and today was their day to show off the results!

Many thanks to all our colleagues at OxSTAR and OUH for organising a great event, to Prof. Charles Vincent for a very interesting talk on quality improvement in healthcare, and to the doctors themselves for all their hard work!

Start off your holiday reading by catching up on what we've been up to in our latest newsletter! 🌴🌞🏖️📖
(Or see a PDF version on our website here: https://www.patientsafetyacademy.co.uk/news)

We had a great time teaching our Leading Quality Improvement course last week - bringing together these three areas to enable people to effect positive change.

Over the two days we covered setting up and running your own improvement project - including five human factors models, nine teamwork elements and five communication strategies, with some illuminating case studies and great group exercises.

If you are interested in any of our courses, get in touch! The full list is on our website here: https://www.patientsafetyacademy.co.uk/training
and can usually be tailored to your requirements and situation.

Our very own Dr Joshua Feinberg presenting the PSA poster "Distractions in the Operating Room: a closer look using the glitch method" at the 2017 International Forum on Quality and Safety in London.

Welcome to the Patient Safety Academy page! We'll be posting about all our events and keeping you up to date with our work - improving patient safety through the application of human factors/ergonomics.