Sailing too close to the wind? How harnessing patient voice can identify drift towards boundaries of acceptable performance (1 August 2024)

Summary

This opinion paper looks at how healthcare organisations identify and act upon different types of risk signals. These signals may be acknowledged, but they might not be because they have become a part of normal practice. The authors outline why risk signals from patients and families should be acknowledged as system-level safety critical information, which can contribute to understanding and changing safety culture in healthcare. They discuss how healthcare organisations could work more proactively with patient experience data in identifying risks and improving system safety.