Regional patient safety and quality leaders aim to reduce disparities in healthcare with collaborative approach

Abstract

Purpose

Washington Patient Safety Coalition (WPSC) brings individuals and healthcare organizations together to identify and work on patient safety priorities. It holds bi-annual strategic planning sessions to assess program effectiveness around current organizational goals and to develop new goals. The purpose of this paper is to describe how WPSC members came to identify health disparities as a priority, and what they did to integrate this into organizational strategy.

Design/methodology/approach

For the 2015 strategic planning session, WPSC staff used 2012-2015 internal activities records to conduct a SWOT analysis. The author conducted stakeholder and member “Sensing Surveys” and framed action items on two underlying considerations: first, positioning of the members within the patient safety landscape, taking into account where the members are most “touching” the issue of disparity and are most appropriately positioned to act as change agents and, second, WPSC is not an established content expert in health disparities.

Findings

The author focused the efforts on assisting the Governor’s Interagency Council in promoting Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services standards. This Council helps to drive policy, but not necessarily operationalizing it. WPSC has ability to fulfill that role; the membership is comprised of organizational leaders, those positioned to operationalize the Council’s disparity interventions. The WPSC saw an opportunity to partner the efforts, bridging gaps between policy and operational action.

Practical implications

This viewpoint shows the power of a small collaboration interested in broadening awareness of a complex issue.

Originality/value

Health disparities are complex and multifaceted. Within the Seattle area there were many organizations committed to working on this topic, each with their unique value add to the issue.

Citation

Veit, K.R. (2017), "Regional patient safety and quality leaders aim to reduce disparities in healthcare with collaborative approach", International Journal of Health Governance, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 37-46. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHG-08-2016-0040