2017-2018 Resident Safety Council
Co-Chairs
Justin Slade, MD
Co-Chair of Resident Safety Council
Internal Medicine Resident
Katherine Werbaneth, MD
Co-Chair of Resident Safety Council
Neurology Resident
Vice Chair
Josianna Schwan, MD
Vice Chair of Communications of Resident Safety Council
Anesthesia Resident
Projects
Building Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Culture
A crucial component of any healthcare organization built to promote continuous improvement is a culture that promotes patient safety and understands how system level issues contribute to medical errors. Residents play a key role in this culture, yet currently play a limited role in filing and reviewing SAFE (adverse event reports). This team will work to promote greater participation in SAFE reporting and to establish a more appropriate means by which residents can participate in review of these reports to promote change in system level issues pertaining to residents at the administrative level.
Improving Goals of Care Discussions
Goals of care discussions are pervasive throughout all medical specialties. Leading these conversations is a skill. There are many targets for improving goals of care conversations and hospital practices where residents can have a direct impact on patient care and improve quality of end of life discussions and decisions.
Appropriate Use of Adjustable Acuity of Care
Residents determine level of care of patients during admissions and transfers of care. There is a significant difference in costs of labor at the IICU care setting verse acute care. Selecting the appropriate level of care and de-escalating care when appropriate is an achievable resident driven initiative that will improve the value of care at Stanford.
What are the benefits of RSC membership?
- Hone your leadership and project management skills
- Collaboration on a multi-disciplinary team of like-minded residents and fellows
- Interface with hospital administration and leadership
- Get training in quality improvement from top thinkers in healthcare
- Participation in hospital-level quality committees
- Guaranteed poster presentation with further publication encouraged and supported
- Letter of recommendation from Dr. Katznelson, Associate Dean of GME, for your resident file
- While others complain about quality and administrative issues in the hospital, you're actually fixing them
What is the time commitment?
- Choose a role that fits your schedule: we have opportunities for involvement with as little or as much time as you feel able to offer.
- We provide flexible meeting times and the ability to attend meetings via videoconference or conference calls
What are the available roles?
Project Team Leader
Project team leaders (two per RSC project) will be responsible for guiding a team of resident colleagues with the assistance of faculty members through an active quality improvement effort with the intention of achieving a sustainable improvement in outcomes. The team leader will utilize methods of quality improvement (Root cause analysis, SMART goals, PDSA cycles, etc.) to establish and work towards their group’s established goals over the course of the year. They will participate in monthly check-in meetings with the Co-Chairs as well as regular meetings with their project teams.
Resident Safety Champion
We are recruiting 1-2 Resident Safety Champions per department to foster collaboration between residents and faculty within their department. They will also serve as a liaison between the quality and safety missions of the RSC and their individual departments. Members in this role will participate in ongoing projects in their department, collaborate with the RSC project teams when appropriate for their mutual goals, and attend bimonthly RSC meetings.
Project Member
Project members will play an active role on an established RSC project. They will work closely with project team leaders and faculty mentors to work establish and work towards their groups goals for the year by utilizing quality improvement methodology. They will participate in regular project group meetings as determined by the project team leader and may also attend bimonthly RSC meetings if they wish.