Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) fully committed itself to a “high-reliability” path three years ago and now, assessing where it has arrived, the health system says it has achieved exactly what it set out to do.

In a LinkedIn posting this week, CHA says its journey to become a “high reliability organization” was aimed at becoming “the kind of institution that patients and families, communities, clinicians and staff can count on. This means delivering high-quality, safe, patient-centered care every time to every patient in every clinical venue across the system.”

CHA worked with Press Ganey to provide hundreds of leaders through 12 hours of training on key behaviors that “enable leaders to see and understand what is happening at the front line.”

In addition, CHA writes, “One hundred percent of CHA staff and providers completed training on what we call ‘high reliability, everybody behaviors.’ These behaviors help people focus their attention, to engage one another with compassion, to communicate clearly, to ask critical questions, to understand and follow protocols, to speak up with concerns, and to apologize for mistakes. Behaviors change actions and actions shape culture.”

The process is working. CHA reports, among other metrics, 40% reduction in serious patient and staff harm; 10% improvement in patients’ reported likelihood to recommend care at CHA; 35% reduction in patient complaints; and statistically significant increases across the board in staff and provider engagement and perceptions of the culture of safety in the institution.

Noting that patient safety work is never done, CHA says in the LinkedIn article, “Our high reliability behaviors have created a solid foundation that we will continue to build on every day, learning from every opportunity to strengthen the quality of our teamwork, putting our patients first and delivering the best possible care.”