As part of Cooper University Health Care’s involvement in the New Jersey High Reliability Organization (HRO) Collaborative, also known as New Jersey STRONG, our goal is to train and educate staff on how to provide the best care to our patients in the safest environment.
There are six safety behaviors that align with New Jersey STRONG’s name and mission:
S – Speak Up for Safety
T – Think Critically
R – Reliably Communicate
O – On Task
N – No Harm
G – Got Your Back
Over the next several months, we will educate staff on how to apply these safety tips – and their associated error prevention tools – to real life, on-the-job situations.
R = Reliably Communicate:
Reliably communicating is all about point-to-point communications. Good communication leads to good teamwork and good decisions, so we want to be rigorous and prudent in how we send and receive information.
What should we do? Ensure that we hear things correctly and understand things accurately.
Why should we do this? To prevent wrong assumptions and misunderstandings that could cause us to make wrong decisions.
There are three error prevention tools for the Reliably Communicate safety behavior that we will discuss during the coming months. We recently covered the SBAR safety tool; the second tool is the Three-Way Repeat-Back and Read-Backs:
- Three-Way Repeat Back:
- Sender providers a request or information to receiver in a clear and concise format.
- Receiver acknowledges receipt by a repeat-back of the request or information.
- Sender acknowledges the accuracy of the repeat-back by saying, “That’s correct!” If not correct, sender repeats the communication.
That third step in which the sender acknowledges the accuracy of the repeat-back is so important. A bad practice is to say “that’s right” because right goes with left and there could be confusion at times in terms of procedures involving laterality.
- Three-Way Read Back:
- This process is similar to the repeat-back, except the receiver writes down the information, request, or order, and then reads back what they have written, and the sender acknowledges the accuracy of the information that the receiver read back.
- It is important to emphasize that you read back what you have just written – not what you heard – which is an important distinction. This confirms you have recorded the information correctly so when you go to carry out the order, you have it right.
The idea of a repeat-back is bigger and should happen more frequently because it’s not limited to just those two situations when a read-back is required – it really can be used anytime you are verbally communicating with someone.
If you have questions about this safety tip, please contact the Patient Safety Department at 110-6634 or 856.382.6634.