| Adverse Event: Any unintended event that interrupts services, causes, or has the potential to cause, an injury or illness and/or damage to persons, property, other assets and/or the natural environment.
Coaching: The process of providing constructive feedback about engaging in safer behavioral choices. Ongoing feedback and coaching is used to communicate about, and reinforce appropriate behavior, teach new skills, motivate high performance, and mentor Workforce Members so they understand their role in the organization.
Consoling: Expressing empathy and providing emotional support to someone in a time of grief or disappointment.
Counseling: Communication with an individual wherein a performance deficiency is identified and expectations for future performance are delineated. Counseling should be memorialized in writing by informal memo or confirmation e-mail, and placed in the department (local) personnel/area file, with a copy provided to the Workforce Member involved. The Workforce Member does not have to sign the document.
Disciplinary Action: Action taken to ensure adherence to acceptable and reasonable standards of performance and conduct – may include written warning, written reprimand, suspension, reduction/demotion, and discharge, applied in a progressive or non-progressive manner. Workforce Members may ask for a union representative or witness (as applicable) if he/she feels a meeting may lead to discipline.
Human Error: An event leading to an action not happening as it was intended, commonly described as a “slip,” “lapse,” or “mistake”.
Just Culture: Just Culture is a guiding principle and practice that: recognizes adverse events are inevitable part of the human and professional experience; focuses on identifying and fixing systemic factors; and, strives to prevent harm fairly without placing inappropriate blame on individuals for system flaws.
Just Culture Champion: A Workforce Member or Labor Union partner who serves to promote Just Culture principles, train colleagues, and/or facilitate the application of the Just Culture System and Behavior Response Guide.
Just Culture System and Behavior Response Guide (The Guide): The document that contains the Just Culture Algorithm and information about responses to behaviors; The Guide is the tool used to ensure systematic and consistent application of Just Culture principles.
Near Miss Event: An incident or unsafe condition with the potential for injury, damage, or harm that is resolved before having actual impact. A near miss may also be considered a “close call.” A near miss can involve privacy breach, interpersonal encounters, medication, treatment, or medical device usage.
Safety: Freedom from unjustified risk and preventable injury.
Substitution Test: Inquiry to determine if other individuals with comparable qualifications and experience would act in the same or similar manner under the same circumstances.
System: An organization’s operational methods, processes or infrastructure.
System Contributors: Factor(s) in the system or its design in which an individual works that may contribute to or allow error or undesired behavioral choices to occur.
Workforce Member: All personnel working at all levels in The Health Agency or one of its departments (e.g., employees, locum tenens, contractors, volunteers, trainees, and other persons, clinical and non-clinical). |
