The Pandemic stressed much of our society, and especially healthcare, in ways never before seen. It highlighted discrepencies in healthcare services based on race, wealth, and zip code. It brought to light the weakness in our health delivery structures. It showed the limited depth of people available to combat the crisis, let alone provide day to day care in more normal times and the burnout that ensues.
High Reliability Organizing focuses on improving and creating systems that reduce risk and improve outcomes. These are often operational systems, such as administering medicine. They can also be human systems, like triage in an emergency room.
“One way to reduce discrimination in medicine is for hospitals, clinics and other medical groups to cultivate the attributes of a high-reliability organization, or HRO.
HRO efforts to address human systems often take on unintentional or systemic bias. When an organization develops a functioning HRO based culture, it challenges all to question themselves and each other, and allows for this to safely happen. “Psychological Safety” is a key component of effective HRO programs.
In this episode Sheeva Azma directs a spotlight on two critical challenges in healtchare delivery settings – Racism and Burn Out. She also provides some thoughts on how to take these issues on at a practical level. Both of these Human System issues are hard to get at, but until we do, healthcare will continue to function suboptimally.
Sources and Copy Rights
Cover Image:
Copy Right Joe Flood via CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Article:
Sheeva Azma, ©Med City News, Long Covid Highlights Racism In Medicine