Factors to consider in the introduction of huddles on clinical wards: perceptions of staff on the SAFE programme

Abstract

The findings point towards the potential efficacy of the huddle as a way of improving hospital staff members' working environments and clinical practice, with important implications for other sites seeking to implement such safety improvement initiatives.

Implementation of Situational Awareness in the Pediatric Oncology Setting. Does a ‘huddle’ Work and Is it Sustainable?

“…The power of senior physicians and pharmacy being present for the majority of huddles, demonstrates that the huddle has clinical significance and is not an onerous task. We believe that the support of the senior physicians with this quality project has increased the sustainability, value and promoted its successful implementation, with literature suggesting that non-attendance of doctors can lead to a subjectively lessened value of a huddle (Conn, Adams, & Gohil, 2015;Stapley et al, 2018). Indeed, the huddle has been seen to be such a valuable tool for communication, safety and patient and family centred care across our unit that non-attendance of senior physicians is infrequent.…”

“…It is important to note that the huddle is not a forum for problem solving, rather a tool to identify and allocate issues to appropriate MDT members, transferring responsibility to the correct discipline increasing efficiency and service cohesion. Direct access to the MDT including the head of department has provided a great equalizing opportunity, fostering respect at all levels (Glymph et al, 2015;McBeth, Durbin-Johnson, & O'Siegel, 2002as cited in Cooper & Meara, 2002 with pre and post discussion shaping a non-hierarchical culture, which has been shown to be a barrier in some of the literature (Stapley et al, 2018).…”

“…Huddles are well known as being sustainable in HROs (Reiter-Palmon, Crowe, & Scott, 2018) however, it is hard to sustain an intervention within the complex nature of the healthcare system particularly when the intervention has a quality focus rather than directly related to patient care. A review of the literature identified two healthcare articles on the implementation of huddles over a twoyear period, (Baloh, Zhu, & Ward, 2017;Stapley et al, 2018). Apart from these two articles, long term sustainability of huddles is not referenced in healthcare literature, with many studies undertaking a point in reference intervention, such as 3-6 months post implementing a huddle (Kylor et al, 2016), rather than longevity.…”

Enhancing teamwork communication and patient safety responsiveness in a paediatric intensive care unit using the daily safety huddle tool

“…The huddle was a central component of the programme. 8 Our journey of improvement took place in the Paediatric ICU-King Abdullah Specialised Children Hospital (KASCH), King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is composed of 20 beds serving critically ill paediatric patients in a patient-family centred care environment. The multidisciplinary team comprised physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, a dietician, a clinical pharmacist, a physiotherapist, an occupational therapist and others.…”

Senior nurses’ perceptions of junior nurses’ incident reporting: A qualitative study

“…In the UK, registered nurse grades are from band 5 to band 8+, those from band 7 onwards are considered senior. Senior nurses have the important role in investigating adverse events and influencing safety (Stapley et al., 2018). Junior nurses are qualified nurses responsible for providing care to individual or groups of patients.…”