HB Healthcare Safety®, SBC We assist HB Healthcare Safety®, SBC achieve its mission of ending suffering and patient harm caused by healthcare delivery.Provided ServicesStrategic ConsultingWeb Development OPPORTUNITY Ending Suffering Caused by Healthcare Delivery An unfortunate side effect of healthcare organizations, like hospitals, that depend on people taking care of people is the inevitability of witnessing the impact of human error. Accidents involving the wrong medication or dosage, a delayed diagnosis, or a misstep during an operation can have dire consequences for patients and providers. Often the individual health care provider working in these faulty systems is blamed when these events occur, as opposed to fixing the broken processes and systems. This results in a cycle of shame and blame that does very little to fix the root of the healthcare system issues. HB Healthcare Safety®, SBC (HBHS) identifies the system and process failures that create the vulnerabilities allowing unfortunate care outcomes and undesirable experiences. “Our work began at Mayo Clinic nearly 20 years ago as a case-based organizational learning methodology. It was created to name, define, and quantify failures of processes and systems of healthcare delivery that occur during hospitalizations ending in a death. HBHS licensed this methodology from Mayo Clinic with the mission of expanding the learning to all healthcare environments and all types of patient and provider experiences. To accomplish this, we needed a technology channel partner to build a safety learning system to manage the learning workflow and capture all of the lessons.” Jeanne Huddleston MD, MS, CEO SOLUTION Fixing Vulnerabilities in Healthcare HBHS developed the Safety Learning System’s® (SLS) Safeware® to guide, facilitate, and capture all possible opportunities for improvement identified during the standardized case review process. From there, HBHS helps clients use those learnings to identify, target, and fix system vulnerabilities in their care policies and practices. After parting ways with its previous technical partner, HBHS brought the Safeware® platform to MentorMate but it required some critical improvements to better achieve its intended goals. “Interestingly, we first met with MentorMate two years prior to engaging with them formally. They told us we could not accomplish what we wanted to do with the budget we had. Basically, they did not think we were ready… and they were correct. We appreciated their frank honesty. Which is why, two years later, we came back to them when we were in need of a more technically secure product with a transparent full partnership in its development.” Lacey Hart MBA, COO PROCESS Identify, Prioritize, Fix The SLS Safeware’s® complex design allows it to manage the organizational learning workflow as it captures a hierarchical matrix of data elements reflecting the nuances of each healthcare system’s organizational structure. HIPAA compliance around personal health information (PHI) and personally identifiable information (PII) further adds to the system’s complexity. As soon as HBHS came to us, we conducted a code and architecture review to identify flaws and prioritize bugs. In the two years since, we’ve dedicated one full-time developer and one full-time QA to bug fixes, feature enhancements, and refactoring to keep the SLS platform running smoothly. Additionally, our Continuation Engineering team provides extra support when needed. Now, we are embarking upon a complete architectural restructuring to further ensure security while obtaining FedRAMP security certification. “HBHS is a social benefit company. So when the call came to translate our healthcare organizational learning methodology into learning for a state-level department of corrections to prevent suicides, we were beyond thrilled. It validated our hopes of impacting any institution where humans were caring for humans. MentorMate easily joined us in this new direction and worked with us to create the flexibility in the SLS Safeware® necessary for successful implementation.” Jeanne Huddleston MD, MS, CEO IMPACT Looking Beyond Hospitals Without any dedicated IT staff of its own, HBHS’ MentorMate team has served as an extension of the company itself, allowing it to grow and move beyond hospitals. Since the SLS Safeware® solution is adaptive, it can be put to use helping any organization that provides person to person care like Veterans Affairs medical centers, mental health providers, prison systems, and educational institutions. Recently, HBHSpartnered with the California prison system to identify system vulnerabilities and opportunities for improvement for inmates at risk of committing suicide. With the ultimate mission of ending suffering in any institution where people are caring for people, this HBHS MentorMate team sees many opportunities to make a meaningful difference.