Heartbeat: Safety huddles in pharmacy
September 1, 2021
The safety huddles journey in our workplace continues at pace and this month we share pharmacy’s story.
We caught up with HoJan Senya, Senior Pharmacist (Clinical Trials) & Safety Huddles Lead (pharmacy) who explained that the huddles concept has been in practice for a number of years within the team.
“A couple of years ago, the pharmacy department started trialling huddles in both our dispensaries,” said HoJan. “As with most improvement initiatives, we went through many adaptive and iterative changes, learning day after day how to improve in utilising huddles. During the Unity kick-off week and also initially during the COVID pandemic there was a requirement to get information out to our team members on a very regular basis. Our existing huddles were a great way to get information disseminated and also an effective opportunity to mitigate any issues.
“Our current huddle is now online – the morning one is a department-wide huddle and the midday one is mainly supporting the ward-based teams with workflow. Often the huddle leads can re-direct members of the team to the area where support is required. The huddles have improved teamwork within the department and created an environment where we can ask for help.”
HoJan also reflected on her involvement with ward based safety huddles in her capacity as patient safety specialist. “The ward based safety huddles are a great way for pharmacy colleagues to contribute towards better and safer patient care. They also highlight the initiatives that are already ongoing on the wards such as safe and secure handling of medicines audit, CD audits and antimicrobial audits.
“The best thing about safety huddles being launched in all the different areas within the Trust is that we learn from a variety of specialities. It provides us with an accelerated form of learning. Within pharmacy, a feedback form will be launched to gather information from the ward-based teams. This information will be used to capture any safety issues our department can work towards.
“Our senior management team is very supportive of colleagues attending the ward based huddles. Unfortunately, we have not been able to attend all huddles due to timing, but we are working hard to maximise our workforce capacity.”
Jiten Vyas, Pharmacy Clinical Services Manager added: “Effective safety huddles involve agreed actions, are informed by visual feedback of data and provide the opportunity to celebrate success in reducing harm to service users and teams. It is a simple and efficient tool for front-line staff; these small briefings represent an opportunity to share information about actual or potential medication safety problems and concerns regularly. Brainstorming leads to suggestions for interventions that are implemented in a timely fashion. Safety huddles can be used to identify and address factors contributing to medication errors, educate staff about medications, and promote a culture of change among participants. Ultimately, safety huddles would help to reduce the risk of medication errors and improve the quality of patient care.”
Stephanie Parkes, Lead Pharmacy Technician is also heavily involved in the safety huddles. She said: “In addition to attending the safety huddles, we started meeting with ward managers every month since June 2021, to learn more about their audit, medicine management, medicine related health and safety and to explore continuous improvement opportunities.
“Our team rotate across the groups to enhance service alignment and to provide all team members development opportunities by having exposure to all clinical areas. Band 5 technicians rotate every six months Band 4 technicians every three months.”
Safety huddles have been helping pharmacy colleagues to work closer with the wards as part of the preparedness for the MMUH ward based pharmacist model.
Pun Sharma, Chief Pharmacist, is very proud of his team. He said: “I am delighted that our team members are embracing the safety huddles. They have been working proactively with all the clinical areas, to highlight the issues around medications, patient care and flow then work out solutions together. It won’t be too long for us to achieve ‘tomorrow’s discharge is today’.”