High-Voltage Healthcare:

Lessons in safety from the Electric Company

The Context

Two large hospital networks partnered to develop a joint course on quality assurance and patient safety. Course participants came together to learn leading approaches and expert perspectives on quality and safety.

The Challenge

How do you create meaningful peer-to-peer learning between hospital quality and safety leaders, while shifting perspectives and introducing new ways of thinking about process improvement?

Our Process

We identified strong parallels between hospitals and electrical power plants. Both systems operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and are required to deliver consistent, high-quality outcomes under all conditions. Both employ workers with a wide range of skills, who perform complex tasks in high-risk environments, and they rely on complex systems to ensure both personal safety and operational quality. We took the course on a domestic cross-sector study tour of a power station, where they met with senior executives, interacted with quality and safety leaders, and toured the factory floor.

The Result

The study tour exposed our course participants to different work methods, safety practices, and novel approaches to protocols, incident reviews, and continuous learning. The experience broadened perspectives, created valuable new connections, and generated inspiration for their work in healthcare.