Our commitment to patient safety and delivering top-tier care is at the heart of our mission. This dedication is now advancing significantly as HonorHealth officially begins its journey to become a High Reliability Healthcare Organization (HRO). This isn’t just an upgrade; it’s a fundamental evolution designed to ensure consistent, exceptional care for every patient, every team member, every single time. Please note: The official go-live will be at the end of 2025 and extend throughout 2026.

What exactly defines an HRO in healthcare?

An HRO consistently achieves outstanding results, even in environments filled with potential hazards. This means:

• Safety first: Patient safety is our highest priority, with the goal of zero preventable harm.
• A strong culture of safety: We’re fostering an environment where everyone, from frontline team members to leadership, feels empowered and expected to speak up, ask questions and proactively intervene to prevent errors. It’s about collective vigilance and psychological safety.
• System design for success: Implementing robust system designs that inherently make it easy to do the right thing and more difficult to make mistakes. This includes designing processes, technology and environments with human factors in mind.
• Fair and accountable practices: Operating under Just Culture principles, which differentiate between human error, at-risk behavior and reckless behavior. It holds individuals accountable for their choices while equally holding the organization accountable for its systems and processes.

Milestones on our HRO journey

HonorHealth has actively laid the groundwork for this important change. Key progress includes:

• Just Culture education completed: All HonorHealth team members and leaders have completed Just Culture education. This critical step ensures a shared understanding of accountability and fosters the transparent, collaborative culture essential for our success.
• Defining universal safety skills: We recently concluded design sessions that brought together leadership, including Medical Staff leaders and frontline team members. These sessions focused on identifying and solidifying the “universal skills” we’ll adopt and integrate across HonorHealth. These non-technical skills are vital to enhancing reliability and fostering a strong culture of safety. Examples include the crucial act of speaking up when something doesn’t seem right, validating information or seeking clarity before acting.
• Cultivating awareness through safety stories: To embed HRO principles into our daily lives, we’re now sharing compelling patient safety stories at the start of every meeting. These serve as powerful learning opportunities, raising awareness throughout the organization and demonstrating HRO principles in action. Patient safety currently provides two new stories per month, and we highly encourage teams to share their own relevant experiences.

What’s next and how to get involved

The journey to becoming a fully realized HRO is ongoing, and your unique perspective and expertise are not just valued — they’re absolutely critical for our success.

Here’s how you can actively shape HonorHealth’s HRO future:

• Engage in upcoming education: Comprehensive HRO education specifically for team members, leaders and Medical Staff will roll out in late 2025 and early 2026. Your participation will be essential to understanding and applying these principles.
• Amplify safety discussions: We strongly encourage integrating patient safety stories at the start of your committee meetings. This elevates the importance of patient safety, reinforces HRO principles and promotes a continuous learning environment.
• Participate in implementation activities: As HRO principles become further integrated, opportunities for your involvement in design and implementation activities will arise. Your clinical insight is invaluable in ensuring these principles are practical and effective.
• Champion a culture of speaking up: Continue to promote a culture where reporting events (including near misses) is standard practice, and where everyone feels empowered to speak up for patient safety without fear of reprisal. Your role in fostering this supportive and safe environment is key to building a truly reliable organization.

Our HRO journey represents a deep commitment to continuous improvement, setting new benchmarks for patient safety and quality. By working together, we’re building an organization that consistently delivers the safest, most reliable and highest-quality care to every patient, every time.

For additional questions regarding HonorHealth’s HRO journey, please reach out to John Pope, MD, Nina Shah, DO, or Erin Davis.