Quality improvement
responsibility and resolve conflict promptly and constructively – without blame. When we talk about standardisation of
a process it essentially means that people working for that organisation have an established process to use. If standardisation is done well then it can decrease ambiguity about patient care and guarantee quality, boost productivity and support positive morale within a team. By standardising a process, it will eliminate the need for guesswork or extra work. Every task within any organisation, regardless
of how often it is carried out requires guidelines/rules that define the methodology that needs to be followed. If these rules are not standardised, then you can’t assess whether you are undertaking jobs effectively and ensuring a quality outcome. Standardisation also supports the reduction of human error. A standardised way of doing any task within the perioperative environment should be documented and used as a training tool for new employees. An example of standardisation of care and
change, without a mandate or guideline to follow is the securing of a cannula. Before the most common way of securing a cannula (generally using a product similar to the 3M Tagaderm dressing), most practitioners would secure the cannula using tape and/ or bandages. The driver to this change may have been around infection control issues relating to the use of tapes. This may have significantly transformed the change into an acceptable and standardised way of working. Rules in the workplace are not only
driven by policies and procedures. In many organisations, and particularly within healthcare, ‘rules’ are also established by patterns of behaviour – or the ‘unwritten rules’. The ‘this is how we do it here’, type of approach can influence behaviour and expectations, often referred to as custom and practice. In healthcare, unwritten rules and ways of working can become deeply ingrained into the workplace culture and, if not managed effectively, can consequently seriously endanger patient outcomes. As healthcare professionals, you have a ‘sphere of influence’ in everything that you do. Essentially, a clinician’s core sphere of influence is the care given to a patient allowing patients to make informed choices and support health equality. The WHO checklist is a great example of a core sphere of influence in that there is an obligation to act meaningfully to ensure the patient pathway through theatres is safe – it should not just be a ‘tick box exercise’. The infographic (Fig.1) shows a ‘sphere of influence’ for airway management. The
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