Just Culture for Medical Students: Understanding Response to Providers in Adverse Events.

Introduction: Individual and organizational response to an adverse event is a key part of the life cycle of a patient safety event. Just culture is a safety concept that emphasizes system drivers of human behavior. We developed a learning activity for medical students to teach and discuss just culture as part of a patient safety curriculum. Methods: This small-group, discussion-based learning activity was aimed at third-year medical students. Over 5 years, 628 students participated in it. The session had three components: a presession case-based survey, a didactic lecture, and a facilitated small-group discussion. Participants evaluated the session using our institution's standard learner assessment. They also took a postcourse test that contained multiple-choice questions relating to the session. Results: On a 5-point Likert scale (1 = poor, 3 = good, 5 = excellent), students rated the large-group lecture (3.2) and small-group discussion (3.2) moderately. Over 85% of students answered all knowledge items on a course posttest correctly. Discussion: This learning activity provides an easy-to-implement case-based discussion to introduce the concepts of just culture.

Improving awareness of best practices to reduce surgical site infection: a multistakeholder approach.

Surgical site infection (SSI) is recognized as a focus area by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Joint Commission, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and the Institute of Medicine. An estimated 47% to 84% of SSIs present after discharge from the hospital or ambulatory care facility and, as a result, go undetected by standard SSI surveillance programs. Evidence-based processes and practices that are known to reduce the incidence of SSIs tend to be underused in routine practice. This article describes a multistakeholder process used to develop an educational initiative to raise awareness of best practices to reduce SSIs. The goal was to create a patient-centric educational initiative that involved an active partnership among all stakeholders-medical professional organizations, hospitals/health systems, health insurers, employers and other purchasers, and consumers/patients-to provide the climate necessary to create and sustain a culture of safety.