November 6, 2003
Patient Safety is Advanced by Combining Clinical and Business
Skills in Unique Educational Program
(Philadelphia, PA) – The Department of Surgery
at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania,
the Wharton School and the Leonard
Davis Institute of Health Economics of the University
of Pennsylvania have joined together to establish
the nation’s first management training program
designed to improve patient safety by improving the
leadership skills of the clinical team. Called the Penn
Medicine Patient Safety Leadership Academy, the program
takes 42 mid-level clinical personnel, from all aspects
of the surgical process – doctors, nurses, physician
assistants, and residents – through a seven-month
course of intense weekend conferences and practical
case studies to see how they can apply sound management
practices to improving patient safety.
“Surgery is a highly complicated management process,
with up to 30 different stakeholders involved in the
most basic procedures, yet everyone has a role to play
in patient safety, from start to finish,” said
Jim Mullen, MD, Professor and Vice
Chair of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Medical
Center. “After nurturing the concept for several
years, we have chosen to heavily invest in the development
of leadership and management skills of these clinical
leaders anticipating downstream benefits on patient
safety.”
The Patient Safety Leadership Academy is a tremendous
opportunity to use the educational skills from the nation’s
leading business school to benefit patient safety at
HUP, one of the nation’s top five surgical centers.
The Leadership Academy, which began in October 2003
and runs through May 2004, is a pilot program designed
to prove how “administrative empowering”
of mid-level managers involved in a surgical case improves
patient safety. Teams of seven clinicians will look
at common managerial questions that arise in surgical
situations. Each team will design a project to improve
communication and, ultimately, patient safety in surgical
care where errors are most likely to happen: i.e. between
residency handoffs; moving from pre-operative care to
the operating room and between units, or during shift
changes in lengthy surgeries; communication at the time
of discharge; and during patient transport between procedures.
Some of the common managerial questions that can be
applied to surgical setting include: How do you make
leadership decisions in the face of uncertainty? How
do you enact positive changes for patient safety in
your work system and its current organizational culture?
How do you negotiate with a multi-disciplinary team
and have the patient win? What do you need to know about
health care finance in order to get a financial decision-maker
on your side?
For practical exposure, learning teams will work on
a specific patient safety project to apply their new
leadership skills. A Wharton faculty member will serve
as mentor to each team and a panel of Wharton and School
of Medicine faculty will act as project advisors. Participants
are measured on their progress by pre- and post-program
surveys.
“This is a collaboration of the best in business
and the best in surgery,” said Kathy Pearson,
PhD, Academic Director of the Wharton School.
“The Patient Safety Leadership Academy, if successful,
could become a national learning model for improving
patient safety and management practices in surgery.
If other institutions see that Penn has a successful
model for effective organizational and cultural change
that improves patient safety, then they, too, can follow
our lead. New training techniques are more likely to
catch on if they have the backing of two reputable institutions,
such as Penn Surgery and the Wharton School.”
Funding for the Patient Safety Leadership Academy was
provided by a grant from the Philadelphia Health Care
Trust. A copy of the Leadership Academy program is available
at: www.uphs.upenn.edu/surgery/psla/.
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# # #
The Hospital of the University
of Pennsylvania (HUP), founded in 1874 as the nation’s
first teaching hospital, is today ranked consistently
by US News and World Report as one of the nation’s
“Honor Roll” hospitals. HUP physicians are
faculty in the University of Pennsylvania School of
Medicine -- which is ranked #4 in the nation by US News
and World Report in its annual survey of research-oriented
medical schools. Penn’s School of Medicine is
also ranked #2 in the nation for receipt of NIH research
funds.
About The Wharton School:
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
is recognized around the world for its academic strengths
across every major discipline and at every level of
business education. Founded in 1881 as the first collegiate
business school in the nation, Wharton has approximately
4,600 undergraduate, MBA, doctoral students, more than
8,000 participants in its executive programs annually,
and an alumni network of more than 75,000 worldwide.
About the Leonard Davis Institute of
Health Economics
The Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics is a
cooperative venture among Penn's Schools of Dentistry,
Medicine, Nursing, and Wharton and is the University
of Pennsylvania's center for health services research,
health policy analysis, and health care management executive
education.
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