USA Health leaders to begin training for Safety Starts With Me
Eventually, all employees throughout the health system will receive the three-hour safety training as USA Health moves toward a goal of “zero harm.”
USA Health this week is launching safety training for employees as part of the new Safety Starts With Me initiative. About 180 health system leaders including physicians, program directors, department chairs and champions, initially will undergo a three-hour session on how to create a culture of safety.
“This training will teach people how errors occur, and will give them techniques and skills for how to avoid and decrease errors,” said Becky Pomrenke, M.S.N., R.N., patient safety manager for USA Health.
Eventually, all employees in the health system will receive the three-hour training as the health system moves toward a goal of “zero harm” to patients or co-workers. Leaders will receive additional training on how to create process improvement projects and showcase progress in their departments.
“This is a culture change,” Pomrenke said. “From this moment forward, how we do things at USA Health will be forever changed.”
Among the topics to be covered during the initial training is how to create a fair and just culture in which employees feel psychologically safe to raise safety-related concerns without fear of retribution.
“No matter the industry, most of the mistakes made are process-driven,” said Michael Chang, M.D., chief medical officer for USA Health. “As such, we have to eliminate an atmosphere of ‘blame’ when a mistake is made so that it can be reported and we can get to the root cause of the issue. Through this effort, we can adapt processes in such a way that there is much less opportunity for mistakes to be made.”
Once they are trained, managers will schedule training for their departments. Employees requiring continuing medical education credits will earn three hours for attending the training.
In the coming days and weeks, USA Health employees will begin to see notices and reminders about the new safety program. In addition to general awareness, we will share safety tips and recognize workers for going above and beyond on a potential safety issue.
Earlier this month, the new slogan Safety Starts With Me, was chosen from among 50 suggestions submitted by USA Health employees for the new safety initiative.
