Hi, everyone. You are listening to the Becker's
Healthcare Podcast.
I'm Erica Carbajal, and thank you so much
for tuning into this episode where we're joined
by doctor William Scharf, executive clinical director of
quality and safety
for AdventHealth.
Doctor Scharf, thanks in advance for taking the
time.
Thanks so much, Erica.
Glad to be
joining today. Yeah. We're excited to have you.
Welcome. Welcome.
Well, doctor Scharf, to start us off, do
you mind sharing a little bit about your
background in health care and your current role
at AdventHealth with our audience?
Sure. I'm a a surgeon by training.
I, went to the University of Illinois,
and for medical school and started there for
residency and completed surgical studies at the Ohio
State University
before being in practice,
in,
Downstate Illinois for a number of years.
My life, significantly changed. In 1999,
to Air was Human, came out.
The imagery at that time was just that
there were roughly forty five thousand to one
hundred thousand
lives being lost each year from a medical
error.
But the real thing that impacted me is
just that there were a couple of visionaries
at the organization that I was at that
started a patient safety collaborative.
And the thing that resonated with me was
just that most air is not caused by
bad people. It's caused by bad systems.
And so, I immersed myself in just almost
everything that I could with patient safety
and,
you know, that sometimes,
life throws you curveballs and, I'm here at
AdventHealth,
with,
just an absolutely wonderful organization with a sense
of purpose.
Yeah. Absolutely. And I know AdventHealth is doing
a ton in terms of just creating those
systems that you mentioned and those processes that
really focus on prevention and and fostering that
culture of safety. So excited to hear about
that.
Doctor Scharf, what is one major patient safety
goal that your team at AdventHealth is focused
on for 2026?
And maybe what operational changes
are you working toward to achieve some real
progress?
Well, I can just say is is that
historically when I came, I inherited a newly
found patient safety academy.
I don't really think that many healthcare organizations
have their own patient safety academy or something
therein.
And, since that time, well, let me just,
unpack this a little bit. This is that
our Patient Safety Academy, we bring in our
clinical and operational leaders,
across all of, Annette Health for a three
day course, because you really need to understand
what are the fundamental
parts of patient safety science.
We cannot have, our good leaders
just finessing and doing what they think is
best. They need to have a good foundation
in science.
And what's happened over the course of years
is is is that, there was so much
success out of the Patient Safety Academy is
is that others have said, this is that
doctor Scharf and, some of my other members
of my team, what can we do to
bring you to our places so that perhaps
we could have a condensed version so that
you could talk to our managers
and, unit, leaders?
And to that end, we have created what
we call the signature safety seminar.
And,
what we will do is,
our team will jump on a plane or
drive to one of our hospitals,
and we'll have a condensed version
that teaches learning, knowledge,
leadership,
and, data
management.
So, it's a great experience.
It's actually been an overwhelming success. And, just
as a side note is that later today,
I'm gonna hop on a plane and and,
go to, some of our hospitals in North
Georgia
to speak, tomorrow
at our signature safety seminar.
Wow. Yeah. No. Talk about getting on the
ground and really and really teaching this and
driving this forward. That's great. What a great
initiative.
Doctor Sharp, one of the things that comes
through often, a theme, if you will, that
we hear a lot from quality and safety
leaders
is that a lot of teams
can and are good at initiatives. They can
follow initiative, make progress
in terms of quality and safety, but what
really the differentiator is really
the organizations
that
can drive continuous quality improvement. That differentiator comes
down to culture.
So from your perspective,
what leadership behaviors or operational practices
actually do build that kind of safety culture
daily that's needed across frontline teams?
Excellent question. And, Erica, if you don't mind,
I'd like to unpack this just a little
bit. I'd like to first say is is
that,
AdventHealth, we aspire to be the safest healthcare
organization in the country. That's our North Star
goal,
plain and simple. That's where we wanna be.
To that end, we recognize is that culture
just outweighs policies, technology, and protocols.
And here's where it becomes challenging. First of
all, changing culture takes a very long time.
And secondly, it is hard, hard, hard.
And so leaders really need to be asking
themselves some questions.
Do your staff feel safe to report errors
without fear of punishment?
Are leaders responding constructively
or defensively?
Are your frontline leaders
trust that
their concerns are being addressed or does it
go into some black box? And do your
teams collaborate or do they operate in silos?
That's where we have invested really heavily in
what we call high reliability
organization
unit culture.
It's where,
we have a team that goes to each
of our hospitals,
and addresses,
create Actually, let me just step back. They'll
go to our hospitals, create a They have
a 55 inches
plasma
monitor
that connects electronically
across the hospital, across the system.
And what we do is
is that
that creates a complete data source, but that's
not the whole purpose. The whole purpose is
creating a sense of community
and having frontline,
debriefings,
every day,
for, each of those units because at the
end of the day, that's where, like,
care is delivered is at the unit.
Yeah. That's interesting.
And the point you raised too
about, you know, when concerns are addressed
or brought up, not having them go into
a black box, but really important for staff
to feel like the loop was closed, if
you will. So can you share can you
expand on that a little bit and maybe
share an example of what those processes
look like in terms of being able to
follow-up on on concerns that are raised, you
know, at scale across such a large organization?
Well, yes. First and foremost, it begins with
what we call whole person care. It's our
brand promise,
that we deliver, to our staff and to
our our patients.
And, it begins with,
a faith based culture.
It, we have a set of service standards,
one of them, which is keep me safe.
And,
the recognition is is that we have to
to drive down the fundamentals
of, psychologic safety and creating a just culture.
Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks, doctor Sharp.
I wanted to ask too just around a
recent press gaining report that we covered, and
it had found that nearly half of health
care workers, I believe it was about 47%,
reported low perceptions of safety culture even though
overall scores had improved post pandemic. So what's
your reaction to those findings, and where do
you think perhaps the biggest disconnect still exists
between
leadership's intentions and then frontline staff's actual experience
of safety culture?
Well, I would say, first and foremost, when
I hear this, it it does make me
sad.
It does not have to be that way
at, most of our places. I say most
of our places because,
there are some of our AdventHealth hospitals that
we have acquired and that are on a
pathway, which we call,
acquisition to excellence. Nonetheless, is is is that,
we have an annual
safety culture survey that we look at, really
closely
and create,
strategies and tactics around how to enhance our
culture.
Now,
what I'm getting towards, and that is, is
that when we look at each of our
hospitals, is that there is always a gap.
A gap between leadership and what the frontline
staff is
perceiving.
And, now that's normal. I mean, that's a
recognition that there will always be a gap,
but what we don't wanna see is a
really large gap.
And if we have a particular unit or,
particular areas that,
start to have a gap, then we're gonna
intervene or we're gonna try to provide these
hospitals,
with, tactics that they can,
that are actionable,
that, they can use, to help,
with their teams and so that that gap
does not exist.
Yeah. Definitely. Sounds like it's really critical to
continue to check-in on that annually and and
even more often to be able to identify
where the gaps are and where they might
be growing.
Doctor Scharf, I know that you've spoken a
lot about the importance of safety as everyone's
responsibility
as well, not just clinicians, but also ranging
from teams like environmental services,
HR, spiritual
care. So can you share an example
where from the bedside maybe, where that cross
functional approach has actually made a difference in
safety or quality outcomes?
Before
I dwell into to that answer,
Erica, I just wanna say is is that
one of the things that we recognized,
very early on, and that is is that,
HR has to have a seat at the
table. And so when we do our signature
safety seminar and our Patient Safety Academies, we
actually invite HR because they're critical
in helping support our work towards a psychologic
safety.
Now, to answer your question a little bit
more fully,
and that is, is that it's always been
fascinating to me is that when we see
comments that patients,
have reported about some of the best experiences
that they have had, some of the areas,
they will call out
environmental service individuals who come in and clean
their room daily, or the transporters.
And there's an old proverb or saying that,
is that, you don't have to be Monet
to make an impression.
And so
one of the things that we will do
is just that we'll look at the results
from our safety culture.
And if we see that there's a gap,
you know, the transporters do not feel whole
or valued,
it's just that we're gonna try to,
intervene
such that they can be part of the
daily huddles,
that,
are, at the high reliability,
unit of cultures.
Yeah. That's great. And I think that's a
really standout example of including,
you know, transporters in those daily huddles and
also what you mentioned about HR and kind
of threading that needle of how they actually
do fit in in terms of the psychological
safety and cultivating that across the teams.
Well, doctor Scharf, thank you so much for
joining us on the podcast today, taking time
out of away from the high stakes work
that I know you're leading to share your
insights with our audience.
Thank you so much, Erica. It's been a
pleasure,
and thank you, for all the work that
you're doing with Pechers. Have a great day.
You too. Take care. We'll stay in touch.