The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA) is changing its culture towards how staff handle errors and administration engage millennials.
Lisa Northcott, vice president and chief nurse executive, addressed media at the hospital's informal update Friday. Northcott said administration surveyed staff at the hospital and found out many staff members weren't comfortable coming forward with errors they made. She added it was a culture and mindset administration needed to change so mistakes could be brought up and corrected.
"We want to focus on how we can help staff learn from errors and be comfortable coming forward to prevent them," Northcott said. "Becoming a culture where safety is our focus, think about the risk to patients, and incorporate practices to improve patient safety. We are well on our way to changing that culture."
Northcott added administration will resurvey staff next year, even though it isn't a requirement.
CKHA CEO and President Lori Marshall said staff feel they'll be blamed if they make an error. She wanted to change the mindset from a "blame culture" to a "just culture."
"Where errors happen in hospital's are usually in the system," Marshall said. "When we do a quality review we identify procedures and handoffs between departments. What we are driving to move towards is when these things occur that [staff] report errors about the system so we can learn how to correct them."
It's a change both Marshall and Northcott believe is almost accomplished and now want to change the hospital's culture to appease how millennials like to work.
"The key to the millennial generation is they like a lot of feedback," Marshall said. "That might not be something we're always good at delivering. They get feedback constantly in school, so they want more than annual reviews. They like to be involved, to be part of a cause. We see health care and hospitals as vision drivers. To both attract and retain [millennials] is to engage their hearts and their heads within the organization."
Marshall said it isn't that senior leaders aren't engaging at all, but the generation likes to have the opportunity to have input and be part of the decision making.
The biggest obstacle Marshall saw with bridging the generational gap is millennials prefer a more flexible work environment. She said hospitals are structured with shift work, which would make flexibility challenging going forward.
Marshall said engaging with millennials is a key as the hospitals have an ageing workforce. She added administration has to figure out a way to attract more people of the generation to jobs and more importantly, how to keep them.
