The WalkRounds concept was developed by Allan Frankel, MD, Director of Patient Safety at Partners HealthCare, to accomplish the following objectives:
1. Increase awareness of safety issues by all clinicians
2. Make safety a high priority for senior leadership
3. Educate staff about patient safety concepts such as a “just culture”
4. Obtain information collected from staff about barriers to safety
5. Act, after careful analysis, on information collected from staff
6. Consistently give feedback to frontline providers and leadership on processes
HRET and Partners HealthCare collaborated on a three-year project to study the implementation process of Patient Safety Leadership WalkRounds, the resulting change in the culture of safety within an organization, and the effect WalkRounds can have on nursing and medical students when they participate.
Participants in WalkRounds—including hospital leaders, clinicians, pharmacists, nurses in all phases of training, and medical students—are able to gain new insights into patient safety, such as:
1. Learning to think about system versus individual involvement in adverse incidents
2. Understanding and applying concepts from cognitive psychology about how we process information and how we make errors
3. Understanding what encompasses good teamwork
4. Understanding what encompasses effective communication
5. Developing strategies for understanding and preventing errors
Read more about implementing Patient Safety Leadership WalkRounds.
Funding: Health Resources and Services Administration
Partners: Massachusetts Hospital Association, Partners Health System, Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions Nursing School and Medical School, American Hospital Association
Participating Hospitals: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Cambridge Health Alliance, Children's Hospital - Boston, Fairview Hospital, Noble Hospital, North Shore Medical Center, South Shore Hospital
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