FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas –
“The
nature of healthcare is a complex, risk-filled human endeavor, full of
uncertainty. Healthcare is emotionally charged, stressful and high stakes
endeavor due to the uncertainty of a patient’s reaction to treatment,” said
Maj. Gen. Steve Jones, commanding general, U.S. Army Medical Department Center
and School, U.S. Army Health Readiness Center of Excellence at Fort Sam
Houston.
During
the first High Reliability Organization Quality and Safety Short Course taught
at the Fort Sam Houston Community Center July 19-23, Jones noted that Army
Medicine influences the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the
world, often in austere, extreme conditions.
“Army
Medicine requires leaders who are disciplined and make right decisions adding
that good leaders provide teams the purpose, direction and motivation required
for safe, effective healthcare,” Jones added.
He
explained that teamwork must be based on trust, shared vision and command
understanding and emphasized that commander’s intent is the basis of mission
command and is important for commanders to visualize and describe the mission while
clearly articulating expected behavior.
Jones
said the focus of an HRO is safe, reliable performance and referred to the
practice of strategies, and tools to enhance performance and patient safety or TeamSTEPPS.
TeamSTEPPS is a teamwork system designed for health care professionals.
Based
on performance, knowledge and attitudes, the TeamSTEPPS model encourages the patient
care team to incorporate leadership, communications, situation monitoring and
mutual support principles to improve quality of care. It is the key enabler of
Army Medicine’s “Culture of Trust” with deference to expertise and not
organizational hierarchy or rank to achieve zero preventable harmful events.
Course
attendance included a total of 103 operational level leaders and managers from
across each regional health command, Forces Command, and Army Dental Command. The
course integrated Arbinger leadership training, HRO principles and imperative, as
well as Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt training.
During a
command summit in June, Lt. Gen Patricia Horoho, Army Surgeon General and commanding
general, U.S. Army Medical Command, told assembled leaders that achieving high
reliability organizations requires processes that are consistent.
“Achieving
an HRO is a journey that requires leaders looking at the environment, how it is
changing, adapting, and achieving the highest standards possible.”
Status
quo is not an option, she emphasized.
“We
need to look at where we need to improve to be better enablers for our Army
today and in the future,” Horoho said.
Horoho
noted the importance of acquiring the cognitive ability and knowledge to
thrive, to think faster than our adversaries and look at our pattern of
behavior where we have become complacent about needed improvement in order to
achieve the strategic advantage.
Noting
that Army Medicine is in the business of health readiness and MEDCOM
organizations are health readiness platforms, she highlighted Army medicine’s role,
in diplomacy during the Ebola response medical personnel in Africa proving we
have Soldiers ready to do a job in an austere and variable environment.
“The
role of the AMEDDC&S, HRCoE, is to incorporate HRO principles in the course
curricula at all levels of training and education using the Army Learning Model,”
said Col. Denise Hopkins-Chadwick, Directorate of Training and Academic Affairs.
Incorporating
HRO in the academic environment means insuring faculty have mastery of course
content, course content is relevant and instruction is taught in the
appropriate environment. The challenge for the AMEDDC&S, HRCoE is to
re-imagine, re-think, reinforce and reinvest the practices of an HRO in the
pursuit of envisioning, designing, educating, training and inspiring a premier
military medical force.