Chief Safety Officer Tom Peterson, MD ’87, wants to make medicine safer for patients and healthcare workers. To do that, he says healthcare safety education needs to start earlier.
Dr. Tom Peterson is chief safety officer for Trinity Health System, one of the largest nonprofit, faith-based healthcare systems in the United States, with 127,000 employees, including more than 38,300 physicians and clinicians in a variety of settings across 26 states.
After graduating in 1987 from Adtalem’s American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine, he practiced as a pediatrician and was active in community health efforts, including for underserved populations. For the past 20 years, he has been a healthcare leader with a “one safety” approach that views patient and employee safety together.
Why focus so much of your career on healthcare safety?
Safety has been a passion of mine since I first became engaged with it at a children’s hospital 20 years ago. As a pediatrician, prevention has always been a key focus of our work with children. I have been involved in the areas of childhood obesity, tobacco control, community wellness and other areas where there is significant need for change or improvement that can also affect large populations of people. Safety efforts also have opportunities to affect populations of people. We always drive it down to the individual, making needed changes in healthcare that can affect the safety of our communities as well.
What can leaders do to create and foster a culture of safety in healthcare?
The No. 1 thing is commitment from leadership, from the top. But commitment means more than just saying it. When I came here in 2020, Trinity Health added safety as a core value. That’s one commitment. There has to be commitment from the board, so they hold you accountable. There has to be commitment to resources, staffing, trainings and expecting excellence in how we model safety practices and how we hold ourselves accountable.
Are there things that patients can do to advocate for safety?
Absolutely. Patients need to know that safety is important to the organization, and they should be part of it, not just expect it. I promote patients being involved in their own safety as much as possible. At Trinity Health, we have regions that are starting family safety briefs. When patients are admitted, they watch a video about safety just like we all do every time before we take off in an airplane.
It’s alright for patients and their families to ask questions if they don’t understand what’s happening, if they have a concern, or if something does not seem right. If the doctor comes in and doesn’t wash their hands, they can speak up and remind them. They should know they are part of the team and always be their own advocate.
What can healthcare workers do to advocate for safety?
On one hand, you need the organization to provide trainings, oversight, resources and monitoring. You also need healthcare workers to be engaged. They have to come to work thinking safety. As a system, we have to supply them with the proper resources and support to do that. A high percentage of the safety events that we see with both patients and workers are due to human error. That’s one of the reasons I’m so passionate about getting more safety training into the early education of medical and nursing schools.
How does safety fit into medical education?
Safety is a skill. It’s something you need to learn and continuously train throughout your career. In my early days I never learned anything about it. That was wrong.
When my daughter was in her residency years ago, they had four hours of crew resource management training, which comes from the airline world. But it was a one-time thing. It’s gone and you don’t remember it. That is not the effective way of doing it. If you take piano lessons once, you are not good at playing the piano. But with continued practice over time, you can master your skills and become an expert. The same goes with safety skills.
We have to teach these skills and practices early medical school if we aspire to make them part of being a physician. This early focus on safety is done in the military, the airlines and many other organizations, with everyone. Why not in healthcare? There’s a great opportunity for medical and nursing schools to build in more safety training. For medical students, it might be at a time nearing their clinical rotations and reinforced throughout their time into their clinical careers. If you have the skill to do a surgery, you better have the skill to do good safety practices—a good timeout, a good checklist, a good briefing before the process. Done well, with complete attention, 100% of the time.
Students should feel empowered. They should feel that they’re advocates for their own health and wellness as well as for their patients. I would love if a new resident or medical student on a clinical rotation saw that somebody was starting a procedure and they said, “Hey, why aren’t we doing our safety brief?” It is an expectation you’ve instilled in them to have safety practices every time. Those are the habits that need to be formed early so they become instinctive throughout their entire career, no matter what hospital they go to or what specialty they choose.
For more information, email the Adtalem Global Communications Team: adtalemmedia@adtalem.com.
