Debrief it all: a tool for inclusion of Safety-II

Abstract

Safety science in healthcare has historically focused primarily on reducing risk and minimizing harm by learning everything possible from when things go wrong (Safety-I). Safety-II encourages the study of all events, including the routine and mundane, not only bad outcomes. While debriefing and learning from positive events is not uncommon or new to simulation, many common debriefing strategies are more focused on Safety-I. The lack of inclusion of Safety-II misses out on the powerful analysis of everyday work.A debriefing tool highlighting Safety-II concepts was developed through expert consensus and piloting and is offered as a guide to encourage and facilitate inclusion of Safety-II analysis into debriefings. It allows for debriefing expansion from the focus on error analysis and “what went wrong” or “could have gone better” to now also capture valuable discussion of high yield Safety-II concepts such as capacities, adjustments, variation, and adaptation for successful operations in a complex system. Additionally, debriefing inclusive of Safety-II fosters increased debriefing overall by encouraging debriefing when “things go right”, not historically what is most commonly debriefed.