AHRQ Innovations Exchange | Unit-Based Safety Program Improves Safety Culture, Reduces Medication Errors and Length of Stay

Unit-Based Safety Program Improves Safety Culture, Reduces Medication Errors and Length of Stay

Snapshot
Summary
The Comprehensive Unit-Based Safety Program (CUSP) is a safety culture program that is designed to educate and improve awareness about patient safety and quality of care, empower staff to take charge and improve safety in their workplace, create partnerships between units and hospital executives to improve organizational culture and provide resources for unit improvement efforts, and provide tools to investigate and learn from defects. The unit-based team uses a structured process integrated into an organizational strategic plan, while deferring to the local wisdom of frontline staff members who prevent safety hazards every day. A pre- and post-implementation evaluation of CUSP in two surgical intensive care units at Johns Hopkins Hospital found that the program improved the safety culture and was associated with a reduction in intensive care length of stay, medication errors, and possibly nursing turnover.1 Similar results are seen in other units and other settings (e.g., Michigan intensive care units).2

See the Results section for updated data on improvements in safety culture, the Planning and Development section for information about a new tool to improve guideline compliance, and the Use by Other Organizations section for details about program expansion (updated November 2009).

Evidence Rating
Moderate: The evidence consists of pre- and post-implementation comparisons of key outcomes, including perceptions of safety culture, LOS, medication errors, and nursing turnover.

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AHRQ Innovations Exchange | Unit-Based Safety Program Improves Safety Culture, Reduces Medication Errors and Length of Stay