Abstract
A daily huddle was tested in an academic medical center pharmacy department to see if it resulted in a positive impact on the safety culture and communication. The huddle is a short daily briefing conducted at shift change in a main pharmacy area with a dial in number for those not present in the main pharmacy area. The purpose of the huddle is to raise awareness of any current safety or operational issues. The effectiveness of the huddle was primarily tested through a targeted survey and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Culture Survey results. A survey evaluating daily huddle effectiveness had a 24% response rate. The majority of respondents indicated positive feelings towards the huddle: 58.7% indicated effective communication of information between shifts, 67% indicated effective communication of safety events, and 63% indicated effective communication of daily operational issues. Additionally, the department's AHRQ Patient Safety Culture Survey results improved following the huddle implementation. Departmental staff gave their work unit an overall safety score of the top possible answer, excellent, (vs. very good, acceptable, poor, failing) 11% of the time before the huddle began. Eight months after the huddle started, the number of respondents answering with the top possible score increased to 23% (p<0.05). This positive impact sustained to the next year as well (25% top possible score). Additional positive results are discussed. Implementation of a safety huddle positively influenced measures of communication and safety culture in the Department of Pharmacy Services.
Highlights
In our hospital, safety huddles are routinely used on patient care units to achieve high reliability, and in recent years, our organization has initiated a larger hospital-wide huddle each morning
Sivanandy [9] used a community tool developed from the Agency for Healthcare Research (AHRQ) Patient Safety Culture Survey to identify areas of strength and opportunity within their community, retail pharmacies in Malaysia
Safety huddles are advocated by many safety and regulatory type agencies as best practices
Summary
Safety huddles are routinely used on patient care units to achieve high reliability, and in recent years, our organization has initiated a larger hospital-wide huddle each morning. This huddle includes representatives from all patient care units and clinical operations departments. Like direct patient care units, face daily operational challenges, need for work flow shifts, good team communication and transparency regarding safety events. Larger departments of pharmacy face additional communication barriers due to the need to geographically spread services and people across larger hospital settings.
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