Take the lessons from Capt. Sully
By Shelley Burns
Healthcare has long resisted learning – truly learning – from other industries. One of the first blogs I wrote was on this subject. Yes, healthcare is different. But is it so different that other industries’ ideas, best practices, and demonstrated successes can’t be adapted and applied to healthcare? So different that ubiquitous process improvement strategies don’t apply?
I don’t think so. I read Health Leaders, coverage of Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger’s address to the American Hospital Association Leadership Summit. He described the evolution of aviation safety improvement – there’s no denying the data – and how the industry’s founders found practices that worked. And the key tenets can be applied in multiple enterprises, including healthcare. It’s not rocket science. Well, maybe it is … aviation science, anyway. The key takeaways from Captain Sullenberger’s presentation on quality transformation in aviation were:
- Standardize equipment and responsibilities
- Strictly adhere to checklists
- Cultivate a team culture of safety and quality – zero tolerance
- Eliminate individual blame for systemic failures
- Reframe the captain role from god or cowboy to leader
- Measure, monitor, and communicate quality – incidences, outcomes, and the cost of off-quality
Are these principles really inapplicable to hospitals because their work is so different?It’s not rocket science. That’s not to say it’s easy, that it won’t require a great deal of courage and hard work. It’s difficult, but it’s doable. And it’s the right thing to do. Hospital-acquired infections, medication errors, patient falls, and the like are not uncontrollable collateral damage. They can be prevented if we summon the will to make the seismic mindset shift that Captain Sullenberger recommends, to stop thinking of mistakes “as inevitable and start thinking about them as unimaginable.”
Shelley Burns is head of knowledge management at HMC.
