Roadmap to Health Care Safety

The Roadmap to Health Care Safety for Massachusetts sets five goals for driving measurable improvement in reducing harm events through a sustained, statewide effort. Through the Massachusetts Health Care Safety and Quality Consortium, the Roadmap drew upon the expertise of provider organizations, patients, payers, policymakers, regulators, and other stakeholders.

• Goal 1: Leadership and Culture 

  All leaders of health care provider organizations across the continuum of care make safety a core value and enduring priority, continuously act to advance safety culture and operations, and are accountable for safety performance.

• Goal 2: Operations and Engagement 

  All provider organizations have systems in place that enable leaders, managers, clinicians, and staff to continuously identify safety issues, resolve problems, integrate their operations with safety strategy and plans, and engage patients and families as partners in the work.

• Goal 3: Patient and Family Support 

  All patients and families are engaged and supported to avoid preventable harm in their own care, and receive timely, transparent, and continuing communication and support when things go wrong.

• Goal 4: Workforce Well-being

  All provider organizations strive to eliminate undue workplace stresses and conditions that impact patient safety and the safety and well-being of the workforce, and clinicians and staff have the psychological safety and support they need to continuously engage in safety improvement.

• Goal 5: Measurement and Transparency 

  The state’s health care safety data systems are optimized and harmonized, and provide timely and useful information about providers’ safety performance for providers, policymakers, and the public.

Read the Roadmap and executive summary or watch the video.