Joint Wharton-HUP project cultivates leadership

Select doctors, nurses, physician assistants and residents at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania are the first group to experience a pilot program that aims to improve patient safety by building leadership skills.

Established in October, the program -- called the Penn Medicine Patient Safety Leadership Academy -- was created by the Department of Surgery at HUP, the Wharton School and the University's Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.

"Our thinking was that investing in this work force and leveraging their abilities with some training will have a big impact on patient safety," said Jim Mullen, professor and vice chairman of surgery at the University's medical center.

The program consists of weekend conferences and case studies designed to help participants learn to use management practices to improve patient safety. Different experts on patient safety are also scheduled to speak.

Workshop topics include negotiation skills, communication and health care and finance.

The negotiation workshop held Friday, for instance, allowed participants to practice negotiating using three different cases of varying difficulty levels.

"Their enthusiasm is unbelievable," Mullen said of the 42 program participants. "They're out there having meetings at all hours. It's been very encouraging. They all volunteered to do this, giving up Saturdays and so forth."

The group has been split into teams of seven, and each team was assigned a specific patient safety project to tackle.

"At the end, they're going to have to produce a real-time, practical plan of how to fix the stated patient safety problem they've been working on," Mullen said. "They're going to present it to the leadership of their health system."

In particular, the program hopes to improve communication in surgical care situations where errors become more of a concern, like during shift changes in lengthy surgeries and patient transport between procedures.

"These are principles that can really be used every day," said Angela Wurster, executive director of the Patient Safety Leadership Academy and director of program development for the Department of Surgery at HUP. "And because there is no hierarchy during these sessions, lines of communication that didn't exist before are now open in the workplace."

According to Karen Fiala, health care executive education program manager for Wharton and the Leonard Davis Institute, the participants have been glad to be able to utilize Wharton's resources during the program.

"They are just so ecstatic and thrilled to be getting this business side, since usually they're immersed in the clinical side," she said.

Mullen said he hopes to expand the program in the future and possibly take applications from health care professionals outside of the Philadelphia area.

"So far, from what I've seen, it's working really well, and I think it will expand and grow next year," he said.

According to Wurster, those involved have already begun inquiring about whether a sequel to the program will be held.

"If we can find the funding, we can certainly do a next step to this course," she said, adding that the program is currently being funded by a $600,000 grant from the Philadelphia Health Care Trust.

"Subjectively, we feel successful, but we'll find out from surveys at the end if it's worked or not," she said.

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