Key Takeaways:
- Hospital staff tend to underreport both patient harm and workplace violence.
- Hospitals cannot build a true culture of safety without dependable reporting.
- Reporting near misses is key to eliminating harm and an often-untapped opportunity for hospitals.
A critical component of a successful health care organization is a robust culture of safety, and a key ingredient of that culture is effective reporting. The new HQI issue paper, Reporting on Patient Harm and Workplace Violence: Barometers of Safety Culture, presents the case for why hospitals should strive to increase reporting when staff members experience incidents of patient harm and workplace violence.
In many organizations, both of these important indicators are significantly underreported, leaving gaps in the hospital’s understanding of systemic vulnerabilities and contributors to harm. The HQI analysis paper discusses barriers to staff reporting and recommends strategies for hospital leaders to increase it.
For more information, contact Boris Kalanj, HQI director of programs, at bkalanj@hqinstitute.org.
