Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS) Practice Exam

What description best reflects principles of safe system design?

1. A hospital routinely utilizes control charting to report safety performance.

2. A hospital routinely reviews and updates policies and procedures every two years.

3. A hospital routinely studies close calls.

4. A hospital routinely provides trainings on the use of newly introduced medical equipment.

The correct answer is: A hospital routinely studies close calls.

The option that best reflects the principles of safe system design is the routine study of close calls. This approach emphasizes proactive learning from near-miss incidents to identify vulnerabilities in clinical processes and systems. Analyzing close calls helps organizations understand the factors that contribute to safety incidents and develop strategies to prevent actual harm. By concentrating on close calls, healthcare organizations can cultivate an environment of continuous improvement and learning. This practice aligns with the principles of designing safe systems, which focuses on understanding human behaviors, system complexities, and environmental factors that affect patient safety. It encourages a culture where safety is prioritized and recognized as a shared responsibility among all staff members. While the other options involve important aspects of safety and quality improvement, such as performance reporting, policy reviews, and training, they do not directly focus on learning from near misses. Safe system design is fundamentally about creating environments where safety can be enhanced through understanding and addressing the root causes of potential failures.