When you’ve done all you can do, what do you do?
By Steve MacArthur, Hospital Safet
As I start this, I’m thinking it will be kind of brief, but you and I have both been at the receiving end of my brevity, so we’ll see what happens.
As I ponder the various and sundry processes that make up an effective program for managing the physical environment, I cast my mind back to some instances in which self-identified corrective actions were not completed before our friends from the regulatory world parachuted out of their black helicopters to conduct accreditation surveys (I will freely admit that sometimes those black helicopters look exactly like commercial airliners—I’m not sure how the technology works, but it looks to be pretty seamless…) and the questions are inevitably raised as to (more or less) “How come it’s taking so long?”
There’s also the possibility (it may even be a likelihood, but I shy away from pronouncements based on a small data sample) that when there are findings relating to the physical environment, the general concept of the organization’s responsibility vs. just the Environment of Care (EC) folks sometimes flies out the window. Only you folks know what kind of culture you have in your organization and how much acknowledgement of shared responsibility is going to occur post-survey. But, in response to that “knowledge,” I would ask you to think carefully about how the EC program escalates issues that are difficult, if not impossible, to resolve within the EC program. Sometimes I get the sense that folks are less inclined to “air their dirty laundry” in the direction of organizational leadership, but (in my mind) one of the most important capabilities of any management process is knowing when to ask for help. Clearly, you don’t to “cry wolf” too often, but sometimes you just have to raise your paw…
By way of providing context, as this is generally the time of the annual evaluation (as opposed to the time of the season, though they may coexist), I would encourage you, in your “look back” over the year, to consider whether there were issues identified for which resolution has not been forthcoming. Part of this (OK, perhaps quite a lot of this) may have to do with all things COVID—if the effectiveness of our “product” is based on the juggling of (at times competing) priorities. Much as September 11, 2001 shifted the safety/preparedness world in an unanticipated direction, likewise COVID has pushed things around rather a lot. I suspect that everyone is going to have a COVID list of things that either didn’t get done or didn’t get done as well as one would like. Now is a good time (as we start to close on the birthday of the declared emergency) to quantify the impact of those “things.” I don’t know that it needs to be the sole focus of the annual evaluation process, but if you were to do so, I think you (and your organization) might be well-served for it.
As we rocket through January, I hope this finds you well and staying safe—we will get through this!
About the Author: Steve MacArthur is a safety consultant with The Greeley Company in Danvers, Mass. He brings more than 30 years of healthcare management and consulting experience to his work with hospitals, physician offices, and ambulatory care facilities across the country. He is the author of HCPro's Hospital Safety Director's Handbook and is contributing editor for Healthcare Safety Leader. Contact Steve at stevemacsafetyspace@gmail.com.