Development and application of ‘systems thinking’ principles for quality improvement (March 2020)

Summary

‘Systems thinking’ is often recommended in healthcare to support quality and safety activities but a shared understanding of this concept and purposeful guidance on its application are limited.

Healthcare systems have been described as complex where human adaptation to localised circumstances is often necessary to achieve success. Principles for managing and improving system safety developed by the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL; a European intergovernmental air navigation organisation) incorporate a ‘Safety-II systems approach’ to promote understanding of how safety may be achieved in complex work systems.

Authors of this paper, published by BMJ Open Quality, aimed to adapt and contextualise the core principles of this systems approach and demonstrate the application in a healthcare setting.