Culture of Safety

Safety is our top priority at Waterbury Hospital and core to our values. This why we are committed to becoming a High Reliability Organization (HRO). In an HRO, everyone from our hospital leadership to our frontline staff is committed to the goal of zero harm to every patient, in every experience, every time. Our culture of safety compels us to hold one another accountable and encourages everyone to speak up about patient care concerns.

To support our safety culture, we've established behavior expectations for clinical and non-clinical staff. These expectations call everyone to make a personal commitment to safety, be accountable for clear and complete communication, and remove barriers to cross-functional collaboration.

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Additionally, we've implemented the following organizational efforts to support our culture of safety and our goal of zero preventable harm:

• Clinical staff gather each day for a safety "huddle" to review schedule and important patient safety considerations.
• Unit managers and staff have employed standardized tools and processes to improve safety practices across Waterbury Hospital.
• CEO Lester Schindel and other leadership visit clinical areas weekly to reinforce safety behaviors with frontline staff and discuss processes that are working well and opportunities for improvement.

As Waterbury Hospital healthcare professionals, we are drawn to our profession for its higher purpose: Helping people. Higher reliability helps us achieve that goal by providing the best possible care, which improves the quality of our patients’ lives and the Greater Waterbury communities in which we serve.