Improving Your Culture of Safety by Using Safety Coaches

As the director of accreditation and patient safety, I have seen improvement to the culture of safety by using a safety coach program. What is a safety coach program?

Safety coaching is a fundamental function that focuses on how to learn about close calls and safety issues from frontline employees. Leaders foster a safety culture by encouraging all team members to coach others, speak up about safety concerns, and take action to prevent errors. All employees in the organization must feel responsible and be accountable for consistently maintaining strong safety practices. The processes prioritized through this program include staff willingness and empowerment to speak up for patient safety.

By engaging with frontline staff, their value to the organization is not only appreciated, but begins to directly impact the culture of safety. The frontline staff know firsthand what is going on and the changes that need to be made. When we engage directly and consistently with the frontline staff, we begin to shift the culture and have a positive impact on patient care.

The key steps to a successful program include:

1. Communication. Individuals and leaders must understand the purpose and need for such a program. Communication must come in various formats and on multiple occasions. Frequent and regular communication underlies the importance of this program and keeps the topic in the forefront of their minds.
2. Leadership support is imperative for the development and implementation of this program. Leadership is responsible for the culture of safety, and their role in supporting and encouraging program growth is essential.
3. Defining roles is essential for clarity. Individuals at different levels of the organization must understand not only what a safety coach is doing, but how their specific role interacts with the program and how they can support the program.
4. Education must occur on multiple levels to support the program. This includes initial education to train the safety coaches and then ongoing education to support the growth and development of the safety coaches. In addition, all employees must understand how safety coaches impact the culture of safety and how they as individuals fit into this program. The foundation of the program also needs to be outlined so that an organization follows a common practice, ensuring understanding and developing synergistic activity.
5. Data collection processes need development and support so that there is an understanding about safety coaches’ work. Data analysis allows the safety coaches and leadership to understand priorities for actions and where to focus their time and efforts.  Critical analysis techniques can guide coaches to develop effective and strong action items for implementation.
6. Regular engagement with the safety coaches provides reinforcement to the value of their activities and to their ability to impact change. Whether face-to-face or virtually, this engagement serves as an energizing force and reinforces a safety coach’s time and work. Maintaining engagements through written or electronic messages is an option as well.
7. Finally, be sure to have executive recognition and appreciation of the safety coaches’ work at each educational session. The culture of safety starts at the executive level, and their positive feedback reinforces the work of the safety coach and fuels the ongoing activities and efforts.

Regular communications about the activities and outcomes of the safety coach program must occur at various meetings, whether at the organizational level or at the team/service-line level. These frontline staff members’ outcomes must be shared and communicated. This is a necessary step to ensuring the long-term success of a safety coach program, as well as the ability to positively impact the culture of patient safety.