Happy Valentine’s Day!

Hello All,

Happy Valentine’s Day! The day of hearts and flowers – hearts and souls – love and kindness. Perhaps it is appropriate that I will be continuing the conversation about errors – and how to protect the hearts and souls of the patients and the staff – on this day.

I know many of you have heard me say the following frequently (though I am sure a few people just rolled their eyes and said “a million times”!). ALL of the employees are the heart and soul of an organization. The bricks and mortar may be beautiful – the landscaping may be perfect – and it is the employees that bring the organization’s mission and vison to life. People come to work each day to do a good job and not to hurt others. (It is a very, very rare occurrence when someone does have different thoughts.) Having said that, at some point in time, each and every one of us has made a mistake. Hopefully the mistakes were not big – perhaps they were. No matter, each of you can probably vividly call to mind that event. That moment when you couldn’t take it back. That moment when you realized you negatively impacted someone or something.

So I will start my thoughts about this with a quote from Caitlin Moran, an English journalist and author:I

“The world is difficult and we are all breakable. So just be kind.”

I will frame this conversation around nurses. Those of you from different professions will develop specific thoughts based on the intricacies of your work. New nurses are afraid of many things, but two things are front and center – that they will kill a patient – and that other nurses will not be supportive (workplace bullying for instance). So when they make an error, they are devastated. Actually, every nurse I know is devastated when she/he made an error. An experienced nurses will say “How did I miss this?”, “I thought I had thought through everything”.

So that is why I started with “be kind”.

When an error is uncovered, our first priority is taking care of the patient. The second – and as important – is taking care of the staff.

Let me be clear, taking care of the staff does include holding them accountable. If an error occurred, then we want to be sure the employee is aware, learns and won’t repeat that mistake. It is the manner in which we approach this that can make or break the employee. (Remember too, that everything could have been done correctly and harm occurs. Poop does happen.)

The first thing is to have the employee (and you!) take a deep breath. I have been with employees that have been so distraught they could not think or speak. Then – and especially if the employee self-reported – you need to thank them for coming forward. This is not easy for the employee! The employee at that point is scared and worried about their own employment and their own capabilities. You want to create an environment where people are willing and feel safe to come forward.

The employee needs to work through what went wrong, why it happened, what policies/procedures were/were not followed, and how could this be fixed/prevented. It is important to let the employee talk – and for you to fully listen. You will learn so much that way; not only what happened and what fixes could be deployed (the frontline staff has the best perspective), but also what your employee’s emotional health is at that time.

Understanding the employee’s emotional health allows you the opportunity to take different paths to help them through this traumatic event. If you have an Employee Assistance Program, use it. If you know the employee’s spiritual preference, perhaps a conversation with clergy would offer support. Partnering the employee with a mentor may be helpful. Telling your own story about an error and how you survived may be helpful. Every nurse I know that had such an event, and who was able to navigate the aftermath, became a stronger nurse. You also have great advice on how to handle these situations. Please respond and share so all of us can continue to learn and grow.

I will write next week about additional responsibilities for leaders.

I will end with thoughts that came from…..another acceptance speech! This past Sunday the Academy Awards were given out. There were two acceptance speeches that stood out, one which I will save for next week! The speech from the Best Actor Award winner Joaquin Phoenix, though a tad bit rambling at the beginning, ended with an especially poignant reference to a song lyric written by his younger brother River:

“Run into the rescue with love and peace will follow.”

You and your staff run into the rescue every day. As you care for patients – as you care for your employees – as you care for each other – as you care for yourself – run with love so peace can follow.

Phyl