Patient Safety Structural Measure (PSSM)

Barstow Community Hospital is focused on becoming a high-reliability organization, or HRO. It starts and ends with our leaders who are committed to zero preventable harm and to building a culture where safety is everyone’s personal duty.

In HROs, leaders make safety a top priority. They support continuous learning and push for innovation and growth. They create a shared vision for safer care, and they take personal responsibility for shaping the work culture. And that work leads us closer to one clear, critical goal: zero preventable harm across all care settings.

Patient Safety Structural Measure (PSSM) efforts involve building robust safety systems across five key domains: leadership commitment, strategic planning, safety culture, accountability, and patient engagement. Driven by CMS requirements for improved patient safety and zero preventable harm, Barstow Community Hospital has implemented practices like safety huddles, just culture policies, staff training, transparent reporting, and involving patients/families to meet PSSM goals.

Barstow Community Hospital’s Efforts with Key PSSM Domains

1. Leadership Commitment: Embedding safety in governance, making it a board-level priority, and ensuring quick escalation of serious events.
2. Strategic Planning: Developing plans with specific safety goals, metrics (like reducing disparities), and integrating them into performance.
3. Culture of Safety: Fostering a just culture, conducting safety surveys, implementing high-reliability practices (huddles, rounding), and training all staff.
4. Accountability & Transparency: Using data infrastructure to track metrics, reporting them to staff and the public, and ensuring feedback loops for error reporting.
5. Patient & Family Engagement: Creating Patient and Family Advisory Councils (PFACs) with diverse members and giving patients access to their records: barstowhospital.com/advisory/