Study at Johns Hopkins Hospital leads to changes in reporting patient safety concerns

In a case study published online in Academic Medicine, an international team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge and Johns Hopkins Medicine looked at what prevented employees from raising concerns. The study identifies measures to help healthcare organizations encourage their employees to speak up and recommends a systematic approach to promoting employee voice that appears to have already made a positive impact at Johns Hopkins.

To address the issues raised in these interviews, Johns Hopkins leaders developed, implemented, and in some cases expanded a series of interventions from fall 2014 through summer 2016. These interventions included clear definitions of acceptable and unacceptable behavior, well-coordinated reporting mechanisms, leadership training on having difficult conversations, and consistent consequences for disruptive behaviors.

Safe at Hopkins, a program dedicated to addressing and investigating concerns, was designed, researchers say, to make everyone feel comfortable and safe. It means that instead of relying on individual accounts that could be disputed, Johns Hopkins Medicine leadership now investigates an entire clinical unit. During the period studied, 382 individual reports of disruptive behavior were made that led to 55 investigations in which a whole clinical unit was interviewed.

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