Articles on Perinatal Quality & Safety

Discover how the Fishbone diagram enhances root cause analysis in healthcare. Learn to use the Fishbone diagram to improve patient safety.

Integrating change in healthcare can be difficult for many reasons including a lack of the following resources to effectively drive change: quality support staff, data, leadership, time, adequate mentoring, knowledge of quality improvement (QI) techniques, and a culture that does not support change. The workplace culture aspect is very influential, because it includes hanging on to old practices because ‘this is the way it’s always been done’, also referred to as sacred cows

Before putting quality and safety work into practice, it’s important to plan for the challenges brought on by implementation and sustainability. Challenges include lack of upper-level support/commitment and personnel, project fatigue, and competing priorities. These represent an organizational commitment to quality and safety, adequate support, and use of an organized approach with careful consideration to the current state of project work and what is being asked of all staff

This article describes the six sigma roadmap and describes one hospitals experience using this model to reduce bed turnaround time.

Teamwork A robust perinatal safety program is multifaceted and interdisciplinary, incorporating the following components: quality improvement methodologies, implementation and human factors science, data analysis, safety bundle/evidence-based protocols, safety event review and investigation, multidisciplinary simulation, and work around TeamSTEPPS, culture of safety, and health equity. All of this work takes a village and requires ongoing collaboration between multidisciplin