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Mac's Safety Space: The physics of compliance: If you have no friction, you likely have no traction

Hospital Safety Insider, March 24, 2016

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I think that just about everyone in the safety community has experienced some level of pushback when they've tried to enact some change of process/expectation/behaviors to enhance the safety of their organization. And in so doing, you've discovered that the healthcare culture really does embrace change-it grabs change by the throat, throws it on the ground, and kicks it until it stops moving. This usually comes down to the classic "I've worked here for umpty-ump years and it's never been a problem before," etc., and while it doesn't always seem so helpful in the moment, it does give you something in the way of useful feedback-they've actually noticed what you're trying to do. For example, I can recall a time when the thought of physicians actually wearing ID badges seemed like a fantasy. And yet, as we speak, it is actually happening in a whole bunch of places (maybe not as much as we would like, but you've got to start somewhere). Now admittedly, a lot of the move towards the use of ID badges comes down to the proliferation of access control technology, the end result is that compliance became more convenient (in the ongoing battle between convenience and compliance, all too often convenience kicks compliance's tailbone).

Read Steve's entire blog post here.

Read all of Steve's blog posts on Mac's Safety Space.

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