Positive Deviance Case Analysis to Improve Patient Safety
The University of Colorado Department of Medicine Systems Improvement Conference analyzes safety cases within a Just Culture lens to discover system-based issues, rather than blaming providers, for errors that occur in our hospital system. This type of analysis, called Safety I, is a reactive method to identify errors and create action items to prevent future errors. Conversely, Safety II is an analysis of exceptional care (in cases where no error occurred or a near miss) to identify best practices and proactively prevent safety errors.
Problem: Case reviews are typically reactive and examine errors as they occur (e.g., when things go wrong). If we take a different approach and examine exceptional care (e.g., when things go right) also called positive deviance, we can proactively impact patient safety before errors occur.
Measurement: Our case conference involves an outline of the case, a fishbone analysis of the root causes, then a discussion on potential solutions. In this case, instead of solution generation, we discussed implementing changes to recreate successes from within the case.
Analysis: No statistical analysis was used.
Implementation: We analyzed our case looking for the 'right' events and found several potential action items to improve safety and prevent errors. The case reviewed was an OSH transfer with a STEMI arriving on high dose pressors that unexpectedly recovered.
Results/Discussion: We found the following contributing factors to the patient's improved recovery: 1:1 nursing ratio, silo breakdown among multiple consulting teams, flattened hierarchy empowering nurse to escalate care, clear communication on level of care needed and well-staffed critical care consult service.
Speakers
Quality & Patient Safety Manager - University of Colorado
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