Healthcare Safety Toolkit Library

This resource provides sample documentation to ensure files are complete.

Healthcare entities are responsible for developing credentialing processes for physicians and physician extenders who practice in the hospital and managed care settings. These processes are developed to protect patients from harm. But when physicians are engaged in a medical malpractice lawsuit, the healthcare entity may also be included under the pretense of negligent credentialing.

This webinar provides an overview of a pre-application, initial application/credentialing and reappointment/re-credentialing processes along with the integration of FPPE and OPPE quality criteria. The processes include aspects of primary source verifications, applicant responsibility and how to identify potential risk management issues for review by various Committees and Board approval entities.

Louisiana law on mental health rights for all patients admitted with mental illness.

This tool assists staff in identifying patients who are at risk for elopement and provide interventions to mitigate this risk.

Guide for screening and interventing for alcohol and drug use.

Toolkit from the VA to assist staff to prevent patients from eloping or wandering from facility grounds due to mental conditions.

Hospitals must leverage strategic planning and organizational policies to demonstrate a commitment to safety as a core value. The use of written policies and protocols that demonstrate patient safety is a priority, and identifying goals, metrics and practices to advance progress is foundational to creating an accountable and transparent organization. Hospitals should acknowledge the ultimate goal of zero preventable harm, even while recognizing that this goal may not be currently attainable and requires a continual process of improvement and commitment. Patient safety and equity in care are inextricable and therefore equity, with the goal of safety for all individuals, must be embedded in safety planning, goal-setting, policy and processes.

Hospitals must integrate a suite of evidence-based practices and protocols that are fundamental to cultivating a hospital culture that prioritizes safety and establishes a learning system both within and across hospitals. These practices focus on actively seeking and harnessing information to develop a proactive, hospital-wide approach to optimizing safety and eliminating preventable harm. Hospitals must establish an integrated infrastructure (i.e., people and systems working collaboratively) and foster psychological safety among staff to effectively and reliably implement these practices.

Accountability for outcomes, as well as transparency around safety events and performance, represents the cornerstones of a culture of safety. For hospital leaders, clinical and non-clinical staff, patients, and families to learn from safety events and prevent harm, there must exist a culture that promotes event reporting without fear or hesitation, and safety data collection and analysis with the free flow of information.

The effective and equitable engagement of patients, families, and caregivers is essential to safer, better care. Hospitals must embed patients, families, and caregivers as co-producers of safety and health through meaningful involvement in safety activities, quality improvement, and oversight.

The senior leadership and governing board at hospitals sets the tone for commitment to patient safety. They must be accountable for patient safety outcomes and ensure that patient safety is the highest priority for the hospital. While the hospital leadership and the governing board may convene a board committee dedicated to patient safety, the most senior governing board must oversee all safety activities and hold the organizational leadership accountable for outcomes. Patient safety should be central to all strategic, financial, and operational decisions.