New Patient Safety Primer Highlights Learning Through Debriefing

New Patient Safety Primer Highlights Learning Through Debriefing

Debriefing after real or simulated patient safety events can help health care professionals learn from experience and incorporate improvement into future performance, according to Learning Through Debriefing, a new patient safety primer available on the AHRQ Patient Safety Network. Debriefing is a central learning tool in health care simulation and is recommended after a real-life emergency response. Debriefing is defined as a dialogue between two or more people, and its goals are to discuss the actions and thought processes involved in a particular patient care situation, encourage reflection on those actions and thought processes and incorporate improvement into future performance. Debriefing identifies aspects of team performance that went well and those that did not. The discussion then focuses on determining opportunities for improvement at the individual, team and system levels.