Thought Leadership | Leading for Safety | American College of Healthcare Executives

Safety Collection

Check out our ten most recent safety pieces below. Peruse our entire safety repertoire here.

Just Culture: A Safety Imperative

Anyone following the news of RaDonda Vaught, a former nurse in Nashville, Tenn., surely is saddened by the tragedy of the situation for all involved—the families who suffered this loss and those who feel any responsibility towards its creation. The case serves as a sobering reminder that both workforce and patient safety is the No. 1 job of all of us leading healthcare organizations.
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The Imperative of Improving Transitional Care

In addition to the moral imperative of improving care for some of our highest need patients, effective and integrated transitional care can impact delivery cost, health outcomes, patient safety and many other priorities that all of us as executive leaders are facing each day.
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3 Critical Cybersecurity Concerns for Healthcare

In the past weeks, U.S. and international health agencies have issued urgent and dire warnings of ransomware and other cybersecurity threats for the healthcare industry. Last month at the Congress on Healthcare Leadership, Rachel Wilson, who heads cybersecurity technology for Morgan Stanley’s wealth management business and formerly led global cyberterrorism defense efforts for the National Security Agency, delivered a Hot Topic session on building the infrastructure to mitigate these risks.
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The Governing Body's Role in Health Equity

When leadership at the very top of the organization—governance—makes health equity a priority, improved patient safety outcomes is the result, say experts. Key steps for the governing body to achieve organizational health equity goals is to include them in the strategic plan, then ensure senior leaders operationalize them to establish a culture that understands and embraces the goals.
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A Focus on 'Never Happen Events'

The Hershel “Woody” Williams Veterans Administration Medical Center is on a mission to achieve high reliability in all the processes that support the provision of top-quality care. The medical center began a journey in March 2020 to focus on what it calls “never happen events”—incidents that could occur in its clinical and administrative processes and cause patient harm—as a strategy to get to zero instances of preventable harm.
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Preventing Healthcare Workforce Suicide

High-profile instances of physician suicide as well as increasing attention in recent years from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association and other organizations have sharpened the focus on suicide in the healthcare workforce.
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The Secret to Safer Patients

In action movies and comic books, heroes are superhuman. They’re bigger, faster and stronger than the rest of us. In hospitals, however, heroes are just plain human. While for many in healthcare their work is a vocation, a calling, they at times get tired, unhappy and anxious—just like everyone else. As a result, patient safety and quality of care may suffer.
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Health Equity as a Patient Safety Imperative

It has become clear in healthcare that providing care equally and equitably is not the same. Equal means treating everyone the same. Equitable is providing care services in a way that addresses the patient’s individual needs, which are based on demographic factors, such as age, gender, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic factors, such as housing, food security, income and education levels.
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Repelling Cybersecurity Events

In recent years, many healthcare organizations have stepped up their cybersecurity efforts, but phishing scams and ransomware attacks have become more sophisticated. Healthcare remains a prime target for criminals. Cybercriminals have learned that healthcare organizations not only maintain large quantities of data but also will pay substantial sums of money to avoid an interruption in patient care and protect the safety of patients; other businesses can afford to close for longer periods of time since they do not have the same life safety concerns.
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Providing the Navajo Nation With Cancer Care

Many of us in leadership positions are here to serve our communities. Striving for improved health outcomes and greater health equity, we carry these objectives as our driving force, day in and day out. We stay focused so we don’t get lost in the minutia. Through our work, we interact with community members, and it is always enlightening to hear comments about their delivery of care and any improvements that may be needed.
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