A case of the birth and death of a high reliability healthcare organisation

High reliability organisations (HROs) are those in which errors rarely occur. To accomplish this they conduct relatively error free operations over long periods of time and make consistently good decisions resulting in high quality and reliability. Some organisational processes that characterise HROs are process auditing, implementing appropriate reward systems, avoiding quality degradation, appropriately perceiving that risk exists and developing strategies to deal with it, and command and control. Command and control processes include migrating decision making, redundancy in people or hardware, developing situational awareness, formal rules and procedures, and training. These processes must be tailored to the specific organisation implementing them. These processes were applied to a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) where care was derived from problem solving methodology rather than protocol. After a leadership change, the unit returned to the hierarchical medical model of care. Important outcome variables such as infant mortality, patient return to the PICU after discharge, days on the PICU, air transports, degraded. Implications for clinical practice include providing caregivers with sufficient flexibility to meet changing situations, encouraging teamwork, and avoiding shaming, naming, and blaming.

A longitudinal analysis of memory in patients with schizophrenia

Memory deficits are widely reported in patients with schizophrenia, but uncertainties remain about the extent and the longitudinal course of these deficits. Twenty-eight patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia were tested on multiple aspects of memory at baseline, 9- and 18-month follow-up. Measures included: digit span, the Rivermead Behavioural Memory test (RBMT) battery, the Graded Naming Test (GNT) and several computerized memory tests from the Cambridge Automated Neuropsychological Testing Battery (CANTAB). A group of healthy controls (N=17) was tested on the CANTAB battery at baseline and 9-month follow up. The patients performed significantly poorer than controls on all CANTAB measures; however, there was no difference in change between groups over a 9-month period. Within-group patient comparisons revealed that symptoms reduced significantly over the study period, but had no association with memory. Significant improvements were observed for patients on two verbal memory tasks: the GNT and digit span, but not on any other measure. Interestingly, these were the only two tests on which patients were within normal limits at baseline. This study shows that patients with schizophrenia have deficits in multiple aspects of memory which remain stable over long periods of time. In addition, patients showed a tendency to improve on memory tasks which contained a verbal component.

Stability of set-shifting and planning abilities in patients with schizophrenia

Patients with schizophrenia have deficits in executive function that involve attentional set-shifting and planning ability. It is unclear, however, whether such deficits are stable during the course of the illness or if they fluctuate in response to medication effects or symptom changes. Patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia (n=28) and healthy control subjects (n=17) were tested on computerised measures of attentional set-shifting and planning at baseline and 9-month follow-up. The measures used were the Intra/Extradimensional Shift test (ID/ED) and the Stockings of Cambridge test (SoC) from the Cambridge Automated Neuropsychological Testing Battery (CANTAB). On both tests, the patients were poorer than controls at baseline; however, there was no evidence of change over the 9-month follow-up. Additionally, there was little evidence of a relationship between executive test performance and medication or length of illness. This study accords with the presence of executive processing deficits in schizophrenia that are stable across time.

Lessons learned from non-medical industries: the tragedy of the USS Greeneville

In February 200l the nuclear powered submarine USS Greeneville collided with the Japanese fishing trawler Ehime Maru, killing nine passengers. A series of small failures and hurried actions escalated into tragedy. This incident provides lessons learned that can be used by healthcare organizations to improve patient safety. Expertise, training, equipment, and procedures appeared to be adequate protection, yet the presence of multiple defences obscured their faulty functioning, just as they often do in medical settings. A number of other problems occurred aboard Greeneville which we also see in health care. The problem was the total breakdown of communication. The Greeneville team also failed to move from a rigid hierarchical structure to a more flexible adaptive structure. Communication often breaks down in healthcare settings, which are organized to maximize status and hierarchical differences, thus often impeding information flow needed to make decisions. Redundancy failed aboard Greeneville as it often does in medicine. Finally, the Captain of the Greeneville established an artificially hurried situation. Time constrained situations happen all the time in health care. We recommend strategies to mitigate the development of these kinds of processes.

Changing perceptions of organizational communication: can short-term intervention help?

An intervention activity commensurate with specific organizational goals, directed to short-term change efforts to alter employee perceptions about their satisfaction, about such work activitiesas communication, and about opportunities to make job-related innovations was implemented for emergency room personnel in a large West Coast metropolitan hospital. When evaluated, using a research design which reduced validity threats in interpreting results, perceptions about some aspects of work were found to be more susceptible to change through short interventions than were others.