Authors (including presenting author) :
LAM J(1), LEE S(1), KWOK A(1), WONG B(1), KWAN G(1)
Affiliation :
Quality and Safety Division, NTWC
Introduction :
Patient Safety Walk Round (PSWR) appears to be an effective tool for engaging leadership, identifying and sharing good patient safety practices and promoting patient safety culture within the organization. The New Territories West Cluster (NTWC) started PSWR since 2009. All clinical and non-clinical areas are visited regularly by senior management. With the implementation of PSWR in the NTWC for 10 years, a review of PSWR to evaluate its effectiveness was conducted.
Objectives :
To evaluate the effectiveness of PSWR in the NTWC.
Methodology :
A retrospective study of all PSWR reports conducted in 2017 was performed by a review team comprising 3 primary and 1 secondary reviewers. The PSWR visited areas, observations including good practices and areas for improvement were analyzed. The follow-up statuses of areas for improvement in their subsequent PSWRs were also reviewed.
Result & Outcome :
Total 60 PSWRs to 137 areas had been conducted in 2017. 120 (88%) of the visited areas were clinical areas and the remaining 17 (12%) were non-clinical. These PSWRs generated 930 observations, in which 515 of them (55%) were good practices and 415 of them (45%) were areas for improvement. Among the 415 areas for improvement, patient care (43%), admin and facility (24%), housekeeping (14%) and occupational safety and health (13%) were the most frequent issues. 83% of the recommendations had been completed in the subsequent visits in 2018 and 2019 while 7% were still working in progress. Outstanding good practices and key concerned patient safety areas had been shared to frontline staff in the annual PSWR Sharing Session and positive feedback was received. The PSWR has proven its effectiveness in identifying a variety of good practices and resolving numerous patient safety issues. It also enhanced patient safety culture in the NTWC through engagement with senior and frontline staff with regular learning and sharing. This is reflected from the recent Staff Survey on Patient Safety Culture in 2018 that 1,427 staff (87%) agreed that PSWR is useful.
