Patient Safety Full Court Press Team Explores Global Healthcare Safety Models, Commercial Aviation Solutions

Clockwise from upper left: Dr. Carl Macrae, Dr. Siri Wiig, Capt. Craig Hoskins, Capt. Steve Jangelis.

On Wednesday, March 2, the National Patient Safety Board (NPSB) Full Court Press Team met to learn about healthcare safety boards in England and Norway, and to hear from the Commercial Aviation Safety Team.

Mark DeRubeis, MBA, chair of the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI) Board and the NPSB Full Court Press Team provided an update on the NPSB Policy and Advocacy Coalition, which has grown to include over 60 organizations.

Guest speakers Carl Macrae, PhD, professor of organisational behaviour and psychology at the Centre for Health Innovation, Leadership and Learning at Nottingham University Business School in England, and Siri Wiig, PhD, director of the SHARE Center for Resilience in Healthcare and professor of quality and safety in healthcare systems at the University of Stavanger in Norway, then presented on healthcare safety boards in England and Norway. Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) and PRHI President and CEO Karen Wolk Feinstein, PhD moderated a discussion with the guest speakers. The group had an inside look into the forces that caused both England and Norway to recently establish national agencies solely focused on addressing safety problems in health care and learned what inspired action on patient safety and the tactics that helped to build broad support for the endeavors. For a deeper dive into this conversation, listen to the latest episode of Up Next for Patient Safety here.

Additional guest speakers from the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST), Capt. Craig Hoskins, CAST co-chair, and Capt. Steve Jangelis, aviation safety chair of the Air Line Pilots Association, then shared insights on the CAST model. The NPSB has been modeled on the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to prevent medical errors. At its core, the NTSB is an independent federal agency that investigates accidents and issues recommendations to prevent future accidents. The aviation industry also has an industry-government partnership team called CAST, which proactively identifies emerging safety risks based on shared data and gains consensus on safety enhancements to voluntary implement before the safety event occurs. A hybrid model of the NTSB+CAST can be used to further improve the NPSB's functions and features to identify and anticipate harm and adopt fail-safe solutions to prevent medical errors.

Dr. Feinstein then moderated a discussion with the NPSB Full Court Press Team on how the NPSB could convene similar public-private teams to study the causes of errors, to develop fail-safe solutions, or to voluntarily adopt the recommendations.