Why is high reliability important?
What do people in HROs appreciate?
What is the meaning of "situation awareness"?
What is commitment to resilience?
What are the characteristics of a high reliability organization?
What is everyone aware of?
Why are near misses important?
See 4 more
About this website

The Five Principles of High Reliability Organizations in Health Care
Reluctance to Simplify. Don’t jump to conclusions. Understand the complexity of your organization and of patient’s unique histories. Conduct logic-based root cause analyses to analyze events and don’t let your opinion get in the way.
4 steps for transforming to a high-reliability organization
At the Becker's Hospital Review CEO Strategy Roundtable in Chicago on Nov. 5, Charles Stokes, COO of Memorial Hermann Health System, and M. Michael Shabot, MD, the system's CMO, discussed the ...
A High-Reliability Organization Framework for Health Care: A ... - PubMed
Objectives: Applying high-reliability organization (HRO) principles to health care is complex. No consensus exists as to an effective framework for HRO implementation or the direct impact of adoption. Methods: The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) National Center for Patient Safety established the high-reliability hospital (HRH) model for HRO adoption and piloted HRH in collaboration with ...
Why is high reliability important?
The concept of high reliability is attractive for health care, due to the complexity of operations and the risk of significant and even potentially catastrophic consequences when failures occur in health care. Sometimes people interpret high reliability as meaning effective standardization of health care processes.
What do people in HROs appreciate?
People in HROs appreciate that the people closest to the work are the most knowledgeable about the work. Thus, people in HROs know that in a crisis or emergency the person with greatest knowledge of the situation might not be the person with the highest status and seniority. Deference to local and situation expertise results in a spirit of inquiry and de-emphasis on hierarchy in favor of learning as much as possible about potential safety threats. In an HRO, everyone is expected to share concerns with others and the organizational climate is such that all staff members are comfortable speaking up about potential safety problems.
What is the meaning of "situation awareness"?
This sensitivity is often referred to as "big picture understanding" or "situation awareness." It means that people cultivate an understanding of the context of the current state of their work in relation to the unit or organizational state —i.e., what is going on around them—and how the current state might support or threaten safety.
What is commitment to resilience?
Commitment to resilience is rooted in the fundamental understanding of the frequently unpredictable nature of system failures. People in HROs assume the system is at risk for failure, and they practice performing rapid assessments of and responses to challenging situations. Teams cultivate situation assessment and cross monitoring so they may identify potential safety threats quickly and either respond before safety problems cause harm or mitigate the seriousness of the safety event.
What are the characteristics of a high reliability organization?
Characteristics of High Reliability Organizations. High reliability organizations use systems thinking to evaluate and design for safety, but they are keenly aware that safety is an emergent, rather than a static, property. New threats to safety continuously emerge, uncertainty is endemic, and no two accidents are exactly alike.
What is everyone aware of?
Everyone is aware of and thinking about the potential for failure. People understand that new threats emerge regularly from situations that no one imagined could occur, so all personnel actively think about what could go wrong and are alert to small signs of potential problems.
Why are near misses important?
Near misses are viewed as opportunities to learn about systems issues and potential improvements, rather than as evidence of safety. Reluctance to Simplify.
Why is the RBD not a functional diagram?
The diagram may not reflect the functional diagram of a system as it focuses on the reliability relationships between components or subsystems. For example, within a series system, the RBD will show a string of blocks such that anyone block failing results in the system failing.
What is RBD model?
Often depicting elements within a system as a block within a diagram, RBD models provide a graphical and mathematical model of the system reliability given the reliability and relationships of the elements within the system.
What is FTA in design?
FTA provides the design team a way to organize the relationships between elements and events that may lead (or prevent or mitigate) failures.
Why do we use system reliability models?
We use system reliability models to identify weak links, to focus resources, to meet our desired reliability goals.
Which is better, RBD or FTA?
For systems with more than a few top-level faults of concern, then RBD may be a better starting point. FTA models use a set of symbols to relate system elements, events, etc. The creation of a useful FTA is not difficult, yet may take some time to fully depict all the paths that may lead to failure.
What is fault tree analysis?
A fault tree analysis (FTA) is a logical, graphical diagram that starts with an unwanted, undesirable, or anomalous state of a system.
Why is it important to model mechanisms?
Modeling these mechanisms permits us to evaluate design or use changes, differences in use conditions, etc.
Why is generative culture important?
It provides a framework to integrate all initiatives and a foundation to successfully carry them out. It also gives a clear focus on culture, and a proactive, generative culture is essential to creating sustainable value and providing world class care. Culture is the social glue. It reflects the attitudes and behaviors of the people delivering care. So, a generative culture enhances patient care – and care for the caregivers, the frontline personnel–which can go a long way to addressing burnout and increasing psychological safety.
Why do HROs thrive?
HROs thrive because their leadership takes charge of the culture, engages staff, promotes a culture of safety, and embeds continuous learning and improvement processes into the everyday lives of everyone within the organization. Effective leadership is the primary component of an HRO.
Why is it important to have a safe and empowered frontline?
When frontline care providers don’t feel safe and empowered, they may not feel comfortable speaking up if they notice something that isn’t quite right. Wrong site surgeries and retained foreign bodies are two medical errors that are too common in healthcare, and they are entirely preventable. Studies show that when OR staff feels safe and empowered, there are fewer surgical never events like these.
What is the most effective tool for learning?
The most effective tool is a real-time learning board. These learning boards have several benefits.
Why is quality improvement important in healthcare?
Despite a growing focus on quality improvement in healthcare, the skills needed to make measurable, sustainable improvements in care are not inherent, even among dedicated, smart healthcare professionals, because those skills were not baked into their DNA from medical school through residency through practice as many other skills were. But as anyone in healthcare knows, quality improvement is an essential piece of organizational evolution and development. Patients and their families are at the center of everything healthcare providers do. They entrust their lives and wellbeing with their providers, and that is a sacred trust.
Why is accountability important in safety?
Accountability is another significant aspect in a culture of safety. The framework stresses differentiating between individual issues and systems issues when holding individuals accountable. It’s also important to create a work environment that is perceived to be both just and fair.
Is teamwork a generative culture?
Much like psychological safety, successful teamwork is correlated with improved patient safety. Going back to the cultural maturity scale, a generative culture values teamwork and continuous learning. These things are deeply embedded in the culture, and teamwork is taught and modeled across the organization.
What is HRO in healthcare?
HRO is one such organizational approach to achieving safety, quality, and efficiency goals.3,4At the core of HRO is a culture of “‘collective mindfulness’, in which all workers look for, and report, small problems or unsafe conditions before they pose a substantial risk to the organization and when they are easy to fix.”3,5Use of HRO is designed to change the thinkingabout patient safety through the following 5 principles: (1) sensitivity to operations (ie, heightened awareness of the state of relevant systems and processes); (2) reluctance to simplify (ie, the acceptance that work is complex, with the potential to fail in new and unexpected ways); (3) preoccupation with failure (ie, to view near misses as opportunities to improve rather than proof of success); (4) deference to expertise (ie, to value insights from staff with the most pertinent safety knowledge over those with greater seniority); (5) resilience (ie, to prioritize emergency training for many unlikely but possible system failures).4See Figure 1below.
What are the 5 principles of high reliability?
High Reliability Organizations (HROs) are organizations that achieve safety, quality, and efficiency goals by employing 5 central principles: (1) sensitivity to operations ( ie, heightened awareness of the state of relevant systems and processes ); (2) reluctance to simplify (ie, the acceptance that work is complex, with the potential to fail in new and unexpected ways); (3) preoccupation with failure (ie, to view near misses as opportunities to improve, rather than proof of success ); (4) deference to expertise (ie, to value insights from staff with the most pertinent safety knowledge over those with greater seniority); (5) and practicing resilience (ie, to prioritize emergency training for many unlikely , but possible, system failures). Nuclear power and aviation are classic examples of industries that have applied HRO principles to achieve minimal errors, despite highly hazardous and unpredictable conditions. As death due to medical errors are estimated to be the third leading cause of death in the country, a growing number of health care systems are taking interest in adopting HRO principles. In 2008, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) published a seminal white paper that described the application of the 5 key HRO principles in health care settings, including the specific challenges that threaten reliability in health care, such as higher workforce mobility and care of patients rather than machines. Adoption of these HRO principles in health care offers promise of increased excellence; however, major barriers to widespread implementation include difficulty in adopting organization-level safety culture principles into practice; competing priorities between HRO and other large-scale organizational transformation initiatives such as electronic health records; and difficulty in creating and implementing process improvement tools and methods to address complex, system-level problems.
What is the objective of HRO?
Objective:To systematically evaluate literature on frameworks for high reliability organization (HRO) implementation, metrics for evaluating a health system’s progress towards becoming an HRO, and effects of HRO implementation on process and patient safety outcomes.
What is ESP CC?
The ESP Coordinating Center (ESP CC) is responding to a request from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Center for Patient Safety for a rapid evidence review on implementing High Reliability Organization (HRO) principles into practice. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the literature on frameworks, metrics, and evidence of effects of HRO implementation. Findings from this review will be used to inform the implementation of the VA’s HRO Initiative.
What is NCBI bookshelf?
NCBI Bookshelf. A service of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.
How do leaders in HROs show respect for individuals?
They show respect for individuals by taking their concerns seriously and providing feedback when information is shared.
What is a high reliability organization?
A high-reliability organization (HRO) is an organization that has succeeded in avoiding catastrophes despite a high level of risk and complexity. Specific examples that have been studied, most famously by researchers Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe, include nuclear power plants, air traffic control systems, and naval aircraft carriers.
What is resilience in high reliability?
Resilience in High-Reliability Organizations means the ability to anticipate trouble spots and improvise when the unexpected occurs. The organization must be able to identify errors that require correction while at the same time innovating solutions within a dynamic environment. They prepare in advance for emergencies and have clear means of communication and control.
What is shared alertness?
This sense of shared alertness is ever present. It applies to small inefficiencies and dangerous failures. Employees are encouraged to report their concerns for potential failures, which can help create best practices across the entire organization. Every person has the tools and language to share the culture supports process breakdown information and transparency.
Why is it important to have a HRO?
Because front line employees are closer to the work than executive leadership, they are better positioned to recognize the potential failure and identify opportunities for improvement. There are no assumptions in an HRO. A consistent concentration on processes leads to observations that inform decision-making and new operational initiatives.
What did Berkley researchers do?
They did extensive research on United States nuclear aircraft carriers, the Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Control system, and nuclear power operations at Pacific Gas and Electric’s Diablo Canyon reactor.
What is the importance of subject matter experts in HRO?
When conditions are high-risk, and circumstances change rapidly, on-the-ground subject matter experts are essential for urgent situational assessment and response.
What is operational transparency?
Operational transparency exists when leaders, staff, patients and their families, organizations, and the community are able to visibly see the activities involved in the learning process. Having the courage to display work openly is a component of being an HRO. Transparency is the key to changing culture.
What is a high reliability culture?
A high reliability culture requires staff at every level to be comfortable sharing information and concerns with others, and to be commended when they do. Leaders should listen and respond to the insights of staff who know how processes work at the point of care and the risks patients face.
What is the foundation of HRO?
Culture is the foundation for vision and strategy. At the core of an HRO, there are five key principles, which are essential for any improvement initiative to succeed: deference to expertise, reluctance to simplify, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience and preoccupation with failure.
How does resilience in hospitals work?
Resiliency in hospitals stem from accountable staff. HROs hold people accountable for their actions, but not for flaws in processes or systems. Individuals are responsible to embody organizational values and, in return, the organization is responsible for treating individuals fairly and justly when things go wrong.
What is a high reliability organization?
Hospital leaders who choose to establish a high reliability organization (HRO) embark on a mission to commit to zero harm and realize true, purposeful work in health care. Applying high reliability concepts in an organization does not require a huge campaign or a major resource investment. It begins with leaders at all levels thinking about how ...
Why is situational awareness important?
Keeping situational awareness is important for staff at all levels, because it is the only way anomalies, potential errors and actual errors can quickly be identified and addressed. Maintaining constant awareness by leaders and staff of the care delivery process is essential. This awareness is key to recognizing risks and working to prevent them.
Is it safe to simplify work processes?
While simplifying work processes is highly desirable, it is risky to oversimplify explanations of what has happened or what might happen in the future. Being able to identify the often-subtle differences among safety risks may make the difference between early and late recognition. Simple processes are good, but simplistic explanations for why things work or fail are risky . Avoiding overly simple explanations of failure is essential to understand the true reasons patients are placed at risk.
Why is high reliability important?
The concept of high reliability is attractive for health care, due to the complexity of operations and the risk of significant and even potentially catastrophic consequences when failures occur in health care. Sometimes people interpret high reliability as meaning effective standardization of health care processes.
What do people in HROs appreciate?
People in HROs appreciate that the people closest to the work are the most knowledgeable about the work. Thus, people in HROs know that in a crisis or emergency the person with greatest knowledge of the situation might not be the person with the highest status and seniority. Deference to local and situation expertise results in a spirit of inquiry and de-emphasis on hierarchy in favor of learning as much as possible about potential safety threats. In an HRO, everyone is expected to share concerns with others and the organizational climate is such that all staff members are comfortable speaking up about potential safety problems.
What is the meaning of "situation awareness"?
This sensitivity is often referred to as "big picture understanding" or "situation awareness." It means that people cultivate an understanding of the context of the current state of their work in relation to the unit or organizational state —i.e., what is going on around them—and how the current state might support or threaten safety.
What is commitment to resilience?
Commitment to resilience is rooted in the fundamental understanding of the frequently unpredictable nature of system failures. People in HROs assume the system is at risk for failure, and they practice performing rapid assessments of and responses to challenging situations. Teams cultivate situation assessment and cross monitoring so they may identify potential safety threats quickly and either respond before safety problems cause harm or mitigate the seriousness of the safety event.
What are the characteristics of a high reliability organization?
Characteristics of High Reliability Organizations. High reliability organizations use systems thinking to evaluate and design for safety, but they are keenly aware that safety is an emergent, rather than a static, property. New threats to safety continuously emerge, uncertainty is endemic, and no two accidents are exactly alike.
What is everyone aware of?
Everyone is aware of and thinking about the potential for failure. People understand that new threats emerge regularly from situations that no one imagined could occur, so all personnel actively think about what could go wrong and are alert to small signs of potential problems.
Why are near misses important?
Near misses are viewed as opportunities to learn about systems issues and potential improvements, rather than as evidence of safety. Reluctance to Simplify.

Reliability Block Diagrams
Fault Tree Analysis
- High reliability organizations use systems thinking to evaluate and design for safety, but they are keenly aware that safety is an emergent, rather than a static, property. New threats to safety continuously emerge, uncertainty is endemic, and no two accidents are exactly alike. Thus, high reliability organizations work to create an environment in ...
Success Tree Analysis
Markov Models
Petri Net Models
- A fault tree analysis(FTA) is a logical, graphical diagram that starts with an unwanted, undesirable, or anomalous state of a system. The diagram then lays out the many possible faults and combination of faults within the subsystems, components, assemblies, software, and parts comprising the system which may lead to the top level unwanted fault condition. The key to thes…
Failure Mechanism Models Or Physics of Failure (POF) Models
- Very similar to an FTA except the top event is a success state rather than a failure/fault state. Instead of focusing on how the system can fail the model focuses on how the elements of a system relate, including events, such that the system functions as expected.
Summary
- Let’s assume that the future reliability performance of a system relies on the current state of the system, not on its history. This memoryless property is called a Markovian property. Markov models work well with complex repairable systems when we’re interested in long-term average reliability and availability values. A nice description of Markov ...