Patient Safety

The Infirmary Health Patient Safety Program focuses on the continuous enhancement of safety for all patients, visitors, and employees.

We are committed to a Just Culture of safety in which employees are encouraged to come forward when they or others make mistakes, allowing us the opportunity to improve the care we deliver and prevent potential errors.

Patient safety is recognized by the Infirmary Health System as an organizational priority. The focus is on continuous awareness of safety concerns with the goal of zero preventable harm. We have developed an entire program to focus on Serious Reportable Events (SREs) such as radiologic events, patient protection events, potential criminal events, environmental events, care management events, product or device events, and surgical or invasive procedure events.

Components of our Patient Safety Program include National Patient Safety Goals, Senior Leadership Rounding, Hospital and Department Huddles, Root Cause Analysis and Failure Mode Effects Analysis processes, and event reporting.

Our dedication to patient safety also involves a Culture of Safety Survey, designed by a nationally recognized tool that has demonstrated validity, consistency, and reliability. The survey is conducted at least every 18 months. These results are analyzed and distributed to leadership and staff. Appropriate departments develop action plans for areas that need the most improvement.

Because of our strong and continuous Patient Safety commitment, we have had a decrease in serious safety events in each Infirmary Health facility. Mobile Infirmary has improved with an 85% decrease, North Baldwin Infirmary has improved with a 100% decrease, Thomas Hospital has improved with a 76% decrease and LTAC has improved with a 100% decrease. Overall, the Infirmary Health System has had an over 81% decrease in serious safety events since the beginning of our Patient Safety Program in 2013.