Accountability is a basic leadership principle that successful leaders need to prioritize in their organizations . Accountability is the obligation to others that you are going to what you say you are going to do .” |
What is accountability ? It is doing what you are supposed to be doing at the right time and the right place . With respect to something as simple as hand hygiene , it is performing this procedure of sanitizing your hands because it is good for the patient , your teammates and yourself . This should be accomplished without someone ( secret shopper ) or something ( technology ) looking over your shoulder . It should be something you do because you need to be accountable to yourself . This is not like cheating on an exam . When you cheat here , people get sick and die .
How does one create a culture of accountability ? Accountability is a basic leadership principle that successful leaders need to prioritize in their organizations . Accountability is the obligation to others that you are going to what you say you are going to do . I found this model that highlights key components of accountability : https :// www . leadingwithhonor . com / engagewith-honor-main /
How does this apply to hand hygiene ? For a long time , we have known that this simple , fundamental process reduces the risk of infection , but we have not embraced the idea that we must be personally accountable to ourselves for our knowledge , performance and transparency . Once we embrace “ personal accountability ,” we can begin to entertain new ideas to help us deliver on our promise and that will allow us to answer the following questions :
● If using technology to help us be more accountable , does this technology measure “ real hand hygiene compliance ”?
● If using secret shopper , does this secret shopper program measure “ real hand hygiene compliance ”?
● Regarding hand hygiene audits of your process as recommended by LeapFrog , how accurate and what is the variance ?
● Are you measuring just nursing ? Why not visitors , supporting departments like EVS , Dietary , Lab , Radiology , etc .?
● Does your data connect to your EMR ? Is it real-time ? Actionable ?
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● Does your data correlate with your rate of healthcare-acquired infections ( HAIs )?
● Do you measure “ facility health ”? Facility health equals hand hygiene compliance plus EVS compliance
Accountability must be the culture within an organization . Leaders in a healthcare organization should not accept excuses . We hear dozens of excuses from staff when engaging in a hand hygiene process improvement project regarding why they can ’ t embrace this accountability , from “ I don ’ t want big brother watching me ,” to “ My hands get chapped with too much hand hygiene ”, to “ I am good and too busy .” Well , when hand hygiene compliance is still between 25 percent to 38 percent average when measured correctly , we have a great deal of opportunity to improve , and it starts with personal accountability .
Next month we will address how to use the data from hand hygiene projects .
If you have any questions or needs , you can always reach out to me directly medicaldatamanagement @ gmail . com
Robert Lee , BA , the CEO and founder of MD-Medical Data Quality & Safety Advisors , LLC , is the senior biologist and performance improvement consultant . MD-MDQSA is the home of The IPEX- The Infection Prevention Exchange , a digital collaboration between selected evidence-based solutions that use big data , technology , and AI to reduce risk of HAIs .
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For a long time , we have known that this simple , fundamental process reduces the risk of infection , but we have not embraced the idea that we must be personally accountable to ourselves for our knowledge , performance and transparency .” |