Resources for Communication Openness

NOTE: The resources included here do not constitute an endorsement by the Center for Patient Safety (CPS). CPS does not attest to the accuracy of information provided by linked sites.

Staff willingness to speak up when they are concerned about unsafe behaviors and conditions is a hallmark of safety culture. This website links to videos that use vignettes to demonstrate challenges to speaking up in healthcare, ways open communication can prevent errors, strategies to raise concerns on the frontline, and benefits of using checklists to support conversation. 

This supplement from the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority outlines tactics to improve communication, including crew resource management, chain-of-command policies, and teamwork training. Three articles are included on the following topics:

• Building a Culture of Operating Room Safety Using Crew Resource Management
• Chain of Command: When Disruptive Behavior Affects Communication and Teamwork
• Patient Safety Is Enhanced by Teamwork

(Freely available podcast; requires free account setup and login for related slides and other materials)

Many staff members think that robust safety cultures are so common in healthcare organizations today, everyone is comfortable pointing out missteps and discrepancies to their colleagues and even getting better at bringing them to the attention of their supervisors. But that is not always the case. This webcast provides information on why this practice is not more common and how to speak up for safety

(Both pages require free account setup and login)

The SBAR (Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation) technique provides a framework for communication between members of the healthcare team about a patient’s condition. This downloadable tool from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) contains two documents:

• “Guidelines for Communicating With Physicians Using the SBAR Process” explains how to carry out the SBAR technique.
• “SBAR Report to Physician About a Critical Situation” is a worksheet/script a provider can use to organize information when preparing to communicate with a physician about a critically ill patient. 

The SBAR training scenarios reflect a range of clinical conditions and patient circumstances and are used in conjunction with other SBAR training materials to assess frontline staff competency in using the SBAR technique for communication.

Staff willingness to speak up when they are concerned about unsafe behaviors and conditions is a hallmark of safety culture. This website links to videos that use vignettes to demonstrate challenges to speaking up in healthcare, ways open communication can prevent errors, strategies to raise concerns on the frontline, and benefits of using checklists to support conversation.

(Requires free account setup and login)

This checklist is designed for use in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) or for other low-risk procedures. It includes items for this type of surgery and omits items that are not applicable to the ASC environment.

The Surgical Care and Outcomes Assessment Program (SCOAP), a program of the Foundation for Health Care Quality, provides a free, downloadable surgical checklist for ambulatory surgery. The one-page checklist was adapted from the World Health Organization (WHO) “Safe Surgery Saves Lives” campaign. It outlines staff-specific roles and activities for each stage of the surgery: operative preparation, briefing prior to incision, process control prior to incision, and debriefing at completion of case.

The American Gastroenterological Association, in partnership with the American College of Gastroenterology and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, developed a safe surgery checklist specifically for ambulatory surgery centers that provide gastroenterology services. The safe surgery checklist helps ensure that certain measures are taken before administration of anesthesia/sedation, introduction of the endoscope, and patient departure from the procedure room.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology and OMIC asked key ophthalmic societies to join them in developing a task force to devise an ophthalmic-specific surgical checklist. The task force produced a sample ophthalmic surgical checklist to meet the needs of patients undergoing many kinds of procedures. This checklist covers tasks before anesthesia, before incision, and before leaving the operating room.