“Annie’s Story” is an example of how healthcare organizations seeking high reliability embrace a just culture in all they do. This includes a system’s approach to analyzing near misses and harm events—looking to analyze events without the knee-jerk blame and shame approach of old. This video specifically focused on Nurse Andrea’s personal experience with an adverse health event with a patient who underwent a hypoglycemic emergency due to a misreading of a glucometer. The video then details the steps she and the hospital took to prevent future adverse health events, as well as other ways to increase overall patient safety and quality.

The Apology and Disclosure Grand Rounds NWH incorporates a video simulated error and a presentation about “When Things Go Wrong”. The presentation discusses disclosure coaching & peer support, the emotional impact of errors on clinicians, and principles for transparent & compassionate disclosure and apology.

Challenging Conversations with Patients and Families presented by Dr. Tim McDonald

Communicating with patients and families following unexpected patient harm can be challenging even in optimal conditions; it is a learned skill. Taking into consideration factors such as socio-economic status, religion, cultural preferences, marital status, sexual orientation and gender identity is important to communicating effectively. This webinar covers methods successfully employed by healthcare institutions to recognize, plan for, and communicate effectively in complex situations and with special groups.

Learning Objectives

After completing this webinar, attendees will be able to…

1. Demonstrate recognition of situations that require advanced techniques for communicating unexpected patient outcomes;

2. Utilize communication enactments in conducting ongoing training in these complex situations within their organizations.

CRPs: Why the insurance industry hasn’t embraced them . . . and why it should presented by Richard Boothman, JD

The driving ideas behind CRPs continue to draw interest and debate, now twenty years after Steve Kraman and Ginny Hamm published their Lexington, KY VA experience with “Extreme Honesty”.  After more than 17 years, the University of Michigan continues to draw attention transparent with their “Michigan Model”, the most successful and longest continual example of a principled, and proactive approach to patients injured in unexpected clinical outcomes.  After years of balking at abandoning “deny and defend” more health systems around the country and around the world are exploring the transition, but a skeptical insurance industry continues to hold back and sometimes, frustrate the desires of their insureds to move in this direction.  Why?  Is the industry’s skepticism well-founded and prudent?  Or is it missing a valuable opportunity?

Rick Boothman, the architect of the “Michigan Model” will initiate a long-deserved discussion into this topic.  His experience suggests that there are multiple insurance advantages in the CRP approach and the insurance industry should rethink old beliefs, practices and prejudices and embrace this model.

Outline

1. Insurance 101 – a dummy’s guide to the construct
2. True CRPs – the essential elements and how the model differs from “deny and defend”
3. What holds the insurance industry back from jumping on board?
4. What is the insurance industry missing and why should it matter?

Learning Objectives

• That too many equate CRPs only with selective, early resolution of potential and asserted claims – what are the essential elements that distinguish a true CRP from established, traditional risk management practices?
• What are the unique outcomes of a CRP and why do they matter?
• Why a CRP better serves the interests of healthcare insureds?
• What unique consequences of a CRP would benefit the insurance industry especially?

Large Scale Implementation of Communication and Resolution Programs

Presented by: Heather Gocke, M.S., RNC-OB, CPHRM, C-EFM

Webinar Date: January 29, 2020

Ms. Gocke introduces a comprehensive program and a holistic approach in reducing harm in healthcare through large scale implementation of CRP. In her presentation, she highlights the importance of disclosure and engagement, and she shares real-life challenges and secrets to success.

Learning Objectives:

1. Outline the method used to engage member sites in culture transformation
2. Learn  how culture measurement, survey data debriefs, and cognitive interviewing techniques are used to inform this body of work
3. Introduce the five domains and components of BETA HEART

Mitigating the Toll of Medical Errors on Clinicians by Jo Shapiro, MD, FACS

Webinar Date: October 31, 2019

As a clinician, being involved in adverse events can have devastating emotional consequences. How we react to these events – as individuals, colleagues and organizations – has a major effect on our organizational culture of psychological safety, provider wellbeing, disclosure and reporting, and patient safety.  Dr. Shapiro’s presentation will detail these effects and address the unique role that frontline physicians can play in supporting one another after adverse events. She will describe the peer support program developed at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and adopted by dozens of healthcare organizations. She will describe the building blocks of a creating and sustaining a peer support program, including providing the participants with the rationale to bring to leadership in advocating for peer support program resources.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify the emotional impact of adverse events on clinicians
2. Recognize the impact this has on a culture of psychological safety, provider wellbeing, disclosure and reporting, and patient safety.
3. Provide a rationale to leadership for developing a peer support program
4. Delineate the foundational aspects of a peer support program

Webinar presented by Dr. Tom Gallagher on Thursday, June 6, 2019

Large-scale adverse events, situations in which a breakdown in care has affected multiple (sometimes thousands) of patients, pose significant challenges for institutions related to responding in ways that inform potentially affected patients without unduly alarming them and managing the follow-up. This webinar will highlight lessons learned from the field around responding effectively to adverse events, as well as key unanswered questions.

Learning objectives:

1. Describe the diversity of large-scale adverse events, and how responding to these events differs from managing adverse events that affect individual patients
2. List the key elements of an effective response to a large-scale adverse events and the tools that are currently available to assist with this process
3. Critique an actual large-scale adverse event patient notification letter and press release, and articulate opportunities for improvement in these documents.

WEBINAR DATE: July 16, 2020

This webinar outlines the concerns and questions about the collision between the judicial system and its pathway to addressing medical error and CRP programs.

PRESENTERS: Cindy Jacobs, RN, JD

OBJECTIVES:

1. Describe the basics of how the tort system operates in a medical error/adverse outcome situations
2. Describe the basics and how, when, and why CRP “apology laws,” “mandatory disclosure” laws/requirements, and healthcare licensing systems intersect and/or collide with the tort system
3. Identify key points to assist healthcare professionals in navigating intersections and collisions

The Communication and Optimal Resolution (CANDOR) process is a patient-centered approach used by health care institutions and practitioners to respond in a timely, thorough, and just way when unexpected patient harm events occur. It focuses on early disclosure of adverse events and a proactive method to achieving an amicable resolution for the patient/family and health care providers.

The video demonstrates an example of the care team’s disclosure meeting conversation with the affected family.

Even when patients receive appropriate treatment and everything is done right, an adverse event or complication can occur. Coverys’ Just-In-Time videos provide an overview of the principles and best practices of disclosure to help healthcare providers effectively communicate with patients following an adverse event. This 14-minute video is the first part of a two-part series. It provides an overview of things to consider prior to meeting with the patient and actions you should take following the disclosure discussion.

Even when patients receive appropriate treatment and everything is done right, an adverse event or complication can occur. Coverys’ Just-In-Time videos provide an overview of the principles and best practices of disclosure to help healthcare providers effectively communicate with patients following an adverse event. This 19-minute video is the second part of a two-part series. It outlines how to conduct the disclosure discussion, including: 1) How to begin the discussion; 2) What to say during the discussion; and 3) How to close the discussion

This video focuses on principles and skills for effective disclosure conversations, especially around delayed cancer diagnosis, and includes a case example.

A short video of Dr. Shapiro speaking on disclosure of medical error to patients and families. This video is part of “Choosing Wisdom: The Path Through Adversity” documentary.

The video includes three scenarios to demonstrate how different approaches to disclosure can have an effect on the course of communication with a patient’s loved one.

Disclosure Scenarios:

1. Disclosure with No Apology
2. Disclosure with Apology of Sympathy
3. Disclosure with Apology or Responsibility

The video demonstrates how medical professionals can talk about medical errors with the care team, patients and their families. It includes two disclosure scenarios and didactic lecture on disclosure.

Key points:

1. common emotional response
2. preparing for the conversation
3. the initial conversation
4. avoiding common mistakes
5. physician support

This YouTube video recounts the true story of Lewis Blackman, a 15-year-old boy who died in a hospital following routine surgery. This story sheds light on the importance of healthcare providers to not only be cognizant of their patients’ conditions,  but to also frequently engage with families so they feel involved in patient care.

This story has been taken from the Book “Wall of Silence” authored by Rosemary Gibson and Janardan Prasad Singh. The story can be found in Part One “Breaking the Silence”-“The Human Face of Medical Mistakes” page no-31.

Dr. Shapiro talks about the importance of having disclosure coaching program and fundamental principles of disclosure coaching. For more videos related to Disclosure and Apology, view the video gallery.

The Medstar’s Patient Safety and Quality Program included this video in their patient safety and care program. This video illustrates the story of Michael Skolnik, who lost his life due to medical malpractice. The error involved the surgeon not being completely transparent with the patient or his family about the surgical procedure. This video emphasizes the importance of shared decision making between patients, families, and physicians to avoid future adverse medical outcomes, especially ones in which lives are lost.