Under the leadership of Jennifer S. Weizer, M.D., director of the Kellogg Quality Improvement Team, the patient safety program has undergone a major expansion, including a new internal website focusing on protocols, checklists, and the development of safety systems.
The website encourages staff to submit their own suggestions for patient safety, which Dr. Weizer considers a crucial contribution “because people working in the field usually have the best ideas for optimizing the system.”
The patient safety committee, composed of physicians, ophthalmic technicians and other Kellogg staff, meets regularly to discuss implementing new safety measures. One of the group’s initiatives is to implement widely root cause analysis (RCA), a method commonly used in business and industry to identify the source of problems. Committee members are trained to serve as RCA team leaders, and each ophthalmology resident physician undertakes RCA exercises several times during training.
Expanded computer capabilities now allow the Kellogg Quality Improvement Team to review much more complete data from the electronic medical record system to assess and improve the department’s safety performance. In the past, such information was randomly sampled.
“I’m excited that Kellogg is embracing the expanded safety program,” Weizer says. “We are fortunate to have such a positive safety culture here—it makes it possible for us to continue to lead the way for patient safety, which rightfully
is at the forefront of our efforts to provide the best quality care for our patients.”