Learning from excellence in healthcare

Summary

Learning from everyday work means learning from all activities regardless of the outcome. But when things go well, this is typically just gratefully accepted, without further investigation. ‘Learning from Excellence’ is changing this, as Adrian Plunkett and Emma Plunkett describe in this article.

Content

Key points

• Learning from Excellence (LfE) is a system for capturing examples of good practice in healthcare as a complementary approach to traditional incident reporting.
• The LfE philosophy proposes that learning from what works well in a system enables improvements in the quality and safety of the work, and the morale of staff performing it.
• LfE systems comprise simple reporting forms for peer-to-peer positive feedback with sharing of examples to enable wider learning.
• LfE reporting identifies excellence and learning opportunities in both process and outcome.
• LfE is aligned with aspects of appreciative inquiry and Safety-II.