The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety
Closing the Loop: Follow-up and Feedback in a Patient Safety Program
Section snippets
Follow-up and Feedback
Follow-up includes prioritizing opportunities and actions, assigning responsibility and accountability, and implementing the action plan. Feedback publicizes actions taken based on comments received to the persons who provide the specific reports or comments and to all levels of personnel.
To achieve robust follow-up of identified safety issues, responsibility and accountability for improvements need to be assigned by senior administration to hospital leaders (such as division chiefs or vice
Discussion
It is important to emphasize that the follow-up and feedback processes described in this article have been continually modified during the last three years. Assigning accountability has been one of the patient safety team’s biggest challenges; we have had numerous discussions with senior leadership to determine which leaders are to be held accountable for various issues, and we continue to refine expectations for how rapidly closure on issues needs to occur. For example, we had initially
Summary
Patient safety programs must systematically ensure that safety issues are followed-up in a timely manner, with the appropriate accountability, to ensure that potential harm to patients is minimized. In addition, feedback to reporters, senior leadership, and the entire staff is critical for the creation of a culture of safety. Communication and tracking tools, such as those described in this article, can help facilitate these processes and strengthen the overall safety culture.
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