Abstract
Background: High reliability organizations (HROs) sustain consistently excellent outcomes over time. Health care systems need to eliminate major quality failures to become reliable.
Local Problem: Practice variations, unstructured leader rounds, and unfavorable patient experience outcomes with Responsiveness of Hospital Staff prompted leaders to adopt Kamishibai cards (K-cards).
Methods: Evidence-based practices (EBPs) such as timeliness of answering call lights, purposeful rounding, communication, and engaging patients were used to develop Responsiveness K-cards.
Interventions: Responsiveness K-cards established standard work for staff responsiveness and audited process compliance. Findings determined what areas needed improvement, and leaders engaged frontline staff in practice changes.
Results: Percentile rank for Responsiveness of Hospital Staff had a sustained increase. Four of 6 hospital units using Responsiveness K-cards achieved 80% rank or better in every patient experience domain for the entire fiscal year.
Conclusions: K-cards use HRO principles to standardize practice and improve outcomes. They encourage continuous improvement, which supports the sustainability of EBPs.