Good Catch! Using Interdisciplinary Teams and Team Reflexivity to Improve Patient Safety

Abstract

Interdisciplinary teams play an important role implementing innovations that facilitate the quality and safety of patient care. This article examined the role of reflexivity in team innovation implementation and its association with an objective patient safety outcome, inpatient fall rates (a fall is an unintended downward displacement of a patient’s body to the ground or other object). In this study, we implemented, supported, and evaluated interdisciplinary teams intended to decrease fall risk in 16 small rural hospitals. These hospitals were part of a collaborative that sought to increase knowledge and facilitate reflexivity about fall event reporting and fall risk reduction structures and processes. We assessed team reflexivity at the start and at the end of the 2-year intervention and innovation implementation at the end of the intervention. The 16 hospitals reported objective fall event data and patient days throughout the project, which we used to calculate comparative rates for assisted, unassisted, and injurious falls. The results suggest that teams benefited from the intervention, increasing reflexivity from the start of the project to the end, which was related to innovation implementation and decreases in fall rates. Theoretical and practical applications of the results are discussed.