FEATURE
nursing for the Endoscopy Center of Niagara in Niagara Falls, New York, says she views safety as one of her top responsibilities. “I was brought up and live in a culture of safety. You learn to expect the unexpected and never think something cannot happen.”
Improve Your ASC’s Safety Culture
Know the current standards and follow established best practices BY ROBERT KURTZ
I
n 2014, the Andrews Institute Ambu- latory Surgery Center in Gulf Breeze, Florida, conducted its first annual safety culture survey. It asked the employ- ees to rank the ASC’s performance in areas including safety priority within the facility, safety as part of the ASC’s ongoing agenda, accountability, issues corrected, teamwork and training. The results, says Barbara Holder,
RN, the ASC’s quality improvement, safety and infection control officer, were eye-opening. “Our employ- ees rated us at 82.5 percent, which is the equivalent of a B- in my book. We really strive for excellence in our facility. When you work with world- renowned surgeons bringing in ath- letes from around the globe, that is not
an acceptable grade. It told me we had some serious work to do.” That kind of attitude exemplifies the perspective ASCs should take when evaluating their safety culture, says Debra Yoder, RN, director of clinical services for Surgical Manage- ment Professionals (SMP), an ASC and surgical hospital management and development company in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
“Our primary goal must be to
always remain cognizant of what we are doing to maintain the safe sur- roundings for our patients,” she says. “We must also make sure our ASCs, as places of employment, provide a safe culture for our staff and physicians.” The daughter and wife of firefight- ers, Mary Merrill, RN, director of
16 ASC FOCUS APRIL 2018 |
www.ascfocus.org
Doing More, Doing Better Improving safety culture must be an organization-wide effort, Yoder says, with ASC leadership setting the tone. Managers must be cognizant of current standards and evidence-based practices intended to help ensure the delivery of care in the best possible manner. “Carefully research and follow the Centers for Disease Control and Pre- vention’s (CDC) infection control guidelines, the Association of periOp- erative Registered Nurses’ (AORN) guidelines for nursing and clinical staff, the Association for the Advance- ment of Medical Instrumentation’s (AAMA) sterilization standards and the American Society of PeriAnes- thesia Nurses’ (ASPN) standards on patient recovery,” she says. “As long as we follow these and other established best practice guidelines and recom- mendations, we will help maintain that safety culture and create a safe envi- ronment for patients.” As part of the efforts to improve the safety culture throughout Andrews Institute Ambulatory Surgery Center, Holder says, staff were empowered with the use of daily huddles. “There is a perception that daily huddles should only happen in the operating room (OR), but safety is important in the whole facility, so we implemented the huddles in every department.” During the huddles, staff discuss
work and safety issues specific to their own department. Each department has a physical “huddle board” used to document the topics of discussion and important announcements. Attached to each huddle board is a dry erase board for staff members to write on when
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