High reliability organizations (HROs) promote a teamwork-based safety culture that ensures inevitable human mistakes do not lead to patient harm. Employees in an HRO strive to have a big-picture understanding of the operational conditions around them. This sensitivity to operations, or “situational awareness,” helps staff understand how their own work relates to the safety of their unit/department and the organization at large, and how they can support a culture of safety.
As members of the New Jersey S.T.R.O.N.G. HRO, Cooper University Health Care focuses on the Sensitivity to Operations principle during daily organizational safety huddles. The huddles include more than 61 leaders from clinical and non-clinical departments at Cooper and focus on understanding the state of each unit and ancillary department. Each unit leader reviews any safety issues or needs that have arisen over the last 24 hours, while also predicting potential needs for the next 24 hours.
Daily safety huddles help Cooper gain situational awareness, and are a key component to ensuring that we provide the best care to our patients in the safest environment.