VA Patient Safety Program: A Cultural Perspective at Four Medical Facilities

The Secretary of the VA concurred and promised an action plan to implement GAO's recommendations in the 12/03/2004 agency review of draft. In a 2007 Congressional Submission, VA reports steps toward program assessment, but not the goal-setting forth program constructs (familiarity, mutual trust, participation) GAO recommended. A large 2005 survey of VHA staff added elements from the GAO review, including familiarity with and participation in the safety program concepts. Measuring mutual trust and comfort in reporting close calls was attempted by their survey. Reports to regions and facilities included results for unit and national averages. An official of the Patient Safety Office ( 09/28/07) stated that while they expect to see participation and understanding increase for these program "constructs", they ask VA staff to do many things (wash hands, mark body parts)therefore, they "hesitate to set numeric goals [for program constructs] when the evidence base is not there". However,he said, by displaying annual statistics ( number of Root Cause Analyses, actions opened and closed) by facility on the internet for all to see, they have removed "plausible deniability" for facility and regional directors.

The program official offered examples of goals explicitly defined, redefined and when measured at the facility level showed sustained improvement year after year. According to the program official (09/21/07)and the 2007 Congressional Submission, they have developed measurement tools and set numeric goals for several objective measures linked strongly to patient welfare such as timely reading of diagnostic images (90% in 48 hours), administration of pre-op antibiotics and specific short-term goals for installation of software patches. Measures defined, measured and reported by facility for all to see on the intranet( but currently without numeric goals) are number of RCA's/year, number of safety reports (of close calls) and tracking of action plan results of the RCAs. The program official wrote:I think making this data available to managers at the network and VAMC level is responsive to the recommendation to develop tools to allow performance to be measured.

VA reports to congress (2007 Submission) that data on "achieving goals" impacts the network director's assessment, retention and pay and that 2005 survey results were reported to them in the last year. However specific interventions "primarily take place at the...local level" while some may involve direction from VHA central offices.