Interprofessional huddles and voluntary reporting of incidents and near-misses are ways to improve patient safety and safety culture. This Norwegian post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) implemented a voluntary incident reporting method, Green Cross (GC), that includes daily team huddles to discuss reports from the previous 24 hours. Three years after implementation, staff reported GC was still active, but use has declined, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also reported a desire for increased follow up and physician involvement.

Non-technical skills (NTS), such as teamwork, can be learned through simulation-based team training (SBTT) but must also transfer into practice to be successful. This study reports on an anesthesia team’s transfer of NTS into clinical practice through focus groups at two weeks and six months after participation in in-situ interprofessional SBTT. Participants reported improved practice, but requested more frequent SBTT and debriefing, both in practice and after trainings.

… often resulted in a prolonged hospital stay. … Skoogh A, Hall-Lord ML, Bååth C, et al. Adverse events in women giving birth …

TeamSTEPPS is a patient safety intervention designed to improve teamwork and communication in healthcare settings. One Norwegian hospital utilized TeamSTEPPS to improve professional and organizational outcomes in the urology and gastrointestinal surgery ward. Twelve months after implementation, researchers observed sustained improvements in three patient safety culture dimensions and three teamwork dimensions. Further studies with larger same size and stronger study designs are warranted.

This survey of nurses in 10 Norwegian intensive care units found that most had a more positive perception of safety culture within their individual unit than for the hospital as a whole. The study used the AHRQ Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture.