Clinical Skills Development Service

Safety-II Workshop with Professor Erik Hollnagel

Safety-II workshop with Prof. Erik Hollnagel

On 17 September 2018, CSDS was proud to host a one-day symposium and workshop focused on Safety-II and how it is used in everyday clinical work. CSDS organised the event and reached out to the key safety leads in Metro North HHS and across Queensland Health to participate in this rare opportunity.

The event was presented by world renowned Professor Erik Hollnagel. Professor Erik Hollnagel is currently the Senior Professor of Patient Safety at Jönköping Academy in Sweden, and has contributed strongly to many areas of patient safety including; Cognitive Systems Engineering, Resilient Health Care, the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM), and Safety-II.

Safety-II is an area that CSDS is working closely in with many Queensland Health facilities to explore how we can further improve patient safety. Safety-II itself represents a shift in how workplaces look at safety events and explores the importance of looking not only at incidents, but also at what goes right.

Professor Hollnagel’s introduction to Safety-II and discussions of how it can be implemented and applied to healthcare was truly inspiring and relevant to the group who attended.

The afternoon session comprised of a FRAM mapping workshop. FRAM is a method to analyse how work activities take place either retrospectively or prospectively. It is used in healthcare to try and understand how work is done, as opposed to work as imagined.

It was an honour to have Professor Hollnagel here at CSDS. The event provided a great opportunity for us to hear from a brilliant mind and for the community to connect and collaborate with many leaders of patient safety within Queensland Health.