For this month’s blog, I’m going to focus on a topic that we don’t often like to talk about in health care – process standardization. Despite its success in other industries, process standardization in health care has been a challenge. However, a growing body of literature illustrates that when processes vary, not only do patient outcomes suffer but safety may be compromised.  In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a global patient safety initiative called the High 5s project in an effort to jumpstart the development and implementation of Standard Operating Protocols (SOPs) in health care with the goal of improving safety in health care.

Ensuring safety is not limited to the individual responsibility of caregivers. Safety depends on the processes and systems in place within the practice setting, e.g., a hospital, a clinic, or in the home, etc.  Organizational culture IMPACTS patient safety.  It’s time to design processes in health care using safety science. 

For example, a basic practice in every aspect of health care is hand hygiene. In 2020, we heard a lot about hand hygiene as we dealt with the coronavirus and this continues today.  Handwashing may sound simple, but hand washing in health care is serious business.