Room of Hazards: An Interprofessional Evaluation of Safety Risks in a Simulated Patient Room

Abstract

Objectives: Approximately 3.7% of patients experience adverse events in health care facilities, many of which are preventable. Patient safety requires effective training and an interprofessional culture of safety, but few studies compare the safety skills of different hospital professions. We sought to assess skills in safety hazards identification among staff from different health care disciplines with a pilot study.

Why an IPE Team Matters… Improvement in Identification of Hospital Hazards: A Room of Horrors Pilot Study

“…Previous studies have called for research that tests the impact of interprofessional versus intraprofessional teams in identifying hazards of hospitalization. 23 We have piloted a ROH simulation exercise with students from nine healthcare professions and compared individual versus team identification of patient safety hazards. The aims of our study were to: (a) describe the ability of health professions students to identify pre-staged safety hazards and (b) compare the ability of individual students and interprofessional student teams to identify pre-staged safety hazards.…”

“…In a cross-sectional study of students and professionals from nursing, medicine, pharmacy, social work and psychology, Wang et al 23 found that the training and background of the different professions were associated with significant differences in the type of hazards that were identified. Moreover, Wang’s study found that nursing and medical students were able to identify hazards at similar rates as licensed nurses and physicians, implying that students should feel empowered to voice concern over patient safety hazards in the clinical setting.…”

“… 29 Studies of IPE involving professionals with clinical experience and students without it have shown no differences in their comparative ability to correctly identify hazards. 20 , 23 Hence, such training could also be conducted in hospitals mixing students and professionals to strengthen situational awareness. More robust study designs are needed to test the impact of intraprofessional versus interprofessional teams in identifying hospital hazards, also incorporating demographics such as age, sex and years of experience to control for these variables.…”

Room of Hazards: A Comparison of Differences in Safety Hazard Recognition Among Various Hospital-Based Healthcare Professionals and Trainees in a Simulated Patient Room

“…Previously, we have shown that the ability to identify certain hazards in the hospital may reflect the experience and specific job responsibilities of a given profession. For example, nurses were more likely than other professions to identify hazards associated with patient safety, environment, equipment, and medications while certified nursing assistants were more likely to identify equipment hazards than pharmacists and social workers 8 . In addition, Clay et al 7 studied hazards identified by nursing and medical students and found that the types of hazards identified by professional trainees may reflect the pedagogical differences in their respective learning environments.…”

“…The medical center hosts several events during the annual national Patient Safety Awareness Week to support patient safety initiatives and skill-building activities designed for all staff members to improve their skills in recognition and reporting of medical hazards and errors. The “Room of Hazards” activity was designed as an exercise during the Patient Safety Awareness Week in March 2020 to determine the safety hazard identification skills of various hospital based healthcare staff members and trainees, as a follow-up to our previous work in this area 8 . A simulated patient hospital room was set up with a case scenario, a mannequin, and 29 intentionally placed safety hazards.…”