CONTI N U I NG OU R LEGACY
Practicing Absolute Safety at EvergreenHealth EvergreenHealth Chief Medical and Quality Officer Dr. Ettore Palazzo shares how the health system, along with patients and families, support a culture of safety, now and always Ettore Palazzo, MD, EvergreenHealth Chief Medical and Quality Officer
EvergreenHealth embraces our responsibility to be experts in delivering safe care—it’s part of our organizational culture and one of the many ways in which we live our values. Dr. Ettore Palazzo leads clinical quality and safety at EvergreenHealth, overseeing quality and regulatory work, infection control, risk management, pharmacy, medical staff services and hospitalists and intensivists services. Dr. Palazzo joined EvergreenHealth in 2003 and served as an internal medicine hospitalist physician before becoming Quality Medical Director, and later expanding his quality work as the system’s Chief Medical and Quality Officer. Monitor sat down with Dr. Palazzo to learn about EvergreenHealth’s culture of safety. To read the full interview, visit www.evergreenhealth.com/absolute-safety-qa.
Q: What does safety in health care mean? A: The terms “safe” and “safety” are used frequently in
health care. Keeping patients safe starts with basic safety initiatives, like ensuring our waiting areas are kept impeccably clean, that patients seeking care are properly triaged, that systems are in place for accurate EMR documentation and that staff and providers are properly educated to provide the best care. All of these are supremely important, though safety goes beyond basic protocols. Safety also includes more complex initiatives, like providing patients the right level of care at the right time.
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Q: How does EvergreenHealth invest in safety? A: Two of the areas where we continually invest in safety
are with our people and our technology. It involves providers who work on the frontlines with our patients, and teams who work behind the scenes. Everyone is responsible for safety, which is why we ensure our teams have the education, tools and commitment to uphold safety without exception.
We are also dedicated to the systems, technologies and protocols that represent the latest developments in safety initiatives. SafeLinQ is a digital tool that empowers all staff to report a safety event, such as a patient fall or staff injury, or something that could have resulted in a safety incident. We believe these “near misses” are just
