University of New Mexico Hospital’s Good Catch Program

The University of New Mexico Hospital’s Process Improvement Team is leading a cultural shift toward a safety culture. Reporting “good catches”—events that don’t reach the patient—is an indicator of this shift. The team created a reporting mechanism, system, and training that focus on self-reporting and near-miss patient safety event reporting to correct systemic weakness and create a safer environment for patients and employees. The training program featured 45 courses. Individuals who reported events that had the potential to cause harm but did not because of timely intervention were spotlighted in the “We Care Recognition of the Day” section of the hospital’s organization-wide communication published biweekly. The Patient Safety Portal event reporting system also led to the creation of 89 unit-level and area-level Patient Safety Review Committees that analyze patient harm events and good catches to improve processes.

As a result of the training and system, the number of medication-related patient safety harm events decreased 34 percent from fourth quarter 2021 to first quarter 2022. Concurrently, there has been a 271 percent increase in good catch reporting.