Patient safety has been developed over the years through strategies, protocols, tools, indicators and actions driven from numerous areas of healthcare organizations.
The challenge is not simply having more initiatives. The real challenge is integrating them into a system that allows us to understand where we are, identify what's missing, establish priorities, and guide their development coherently.
Why a patient safety framework?
Antonio Burgueño Jerez,
Because taking action does not always equate to having a system.
Without a common framework, it's difficult to know where we are, what to prioritize y how to move forward coherently.
director of health enclave
(LinkedIn)
With this purpose in mind, the Impulso de Enclave Salud Project was launched in 2015. Based on experience gained in more than 30 healthcare organizations, the project has evolved into a framework for the analysis and development of risk management and patient safety systems.
A complete, proven and operational model
to organize security from the management
down to each clinical unit.
The Enclave Salud team supports healthcare organizations in developing their risk management systems, based on a FRAMEWORK that combines the institutional vision with clinical action:
- More than 40 subprocesses designed from the patient journeyto bring safety directly into clinical practice.
- 10 aspects and 100 actions that strengthen culture and leadership.
In the absence of a frame of reference (at an international level…
At Enclave Salud, we developed a framework for managing patient safety risks due to the absence of a common framework that would allow us to organize, measure, and prioritize existing initiatives.
This framework allows us to know where we are, prioritize objectives, compare ourselves realistically, and support the deployment of the defined actions towards a coherent risk management system.
People and equipment for Patient Safety
Patient safety depends not only on having good practices, protocols, tools, or evaluation systems. It needs people and teams to lead it, promote it, and integrate it into the organization's daily activities.
From management teams to the professionals who provide care, there are different levels of responsibility that must act in a coordinated manner. Management sets priorities and creates the necessary conditions; patient safety managers and teams promote, coordinate, and monitor; and care teams ensure safety in processes and in daily patient care.
Therefore, one of the fundamental elements of the Impulso Project framework is to identify and organize who is involved, what responsibility they assume, and how they relate to the rest of the organization.
Spaces for those who lead and promote Patient Safety
As part of this development, Enclave Salud has created specific spaces aimed at two of the actors with the greatest capacity to promote Patient Safety in healthcare organizations:
Direction team
To lead, guide and create the conditions for the development of Patient Safety.
→ Patient Safety Management Team Portal
Patient Safety Officers
To promote, coordinate and connect the safety strategy with clinical practice.
→ Patient Safety Officer Portal
The Enclave Salud team supports healthcare organizations in the process of developing their risk management system.
A process that, starting from an initial assessment, establishes prioritized objectives and the actions for these, subsequently providing support throughout the entire deployment process.
What is the Impulse Project?
From isolated actions to a systemic vision
Patient safety affects the entire healthcare organization.
The management, safety and quality managers, care units, numerous professional profiles, and, above all, the different processes involved in patient care are all involved.
Therefore, analyzing it solely from specific actions can offer a partial view.
The Impulso Project starts from a different perspective: representing Patient Safety as a system , ordering its main components and the relationships between them.
This framework allows for the integration of two complementary perspectives:
- The institutional dimension, related to leadership, organization, culture, responsibilities and actions necessary to develop the security system.
- The care dimensionwhere safety is ensured throughout the processes and the patient's actual journey.
The goal is not only to identify what is being done, but to understand how the different actions fit together within the whole.
A framework built from the reality of healthcare
One of the differentiating elements of the Impulso Project is to use the patient journey as a guiding thread.
Healthcare can be broken down into different processes and subprocesses in which risks, safety barriers, professionals involved, and interactions between units appear.
The model developed by Enclave Salud includes more than 40 care subprocesses , adaptable to the characteristics of each organization.
This representation allows the construction of a Patient Safety map that helps to identify not only the individual components of the system, but also their interrelationships , precisely one of the places where risks are frequently concentrated.
Knowing where we are so we can decide where to move forward
A frame of reference becomes useful when it allows the representation of the reality of an organization.
Therefore, the Impulso Project incorporates an evaluation structure that allows the analysis of the degree of development of the system from different perspectives.
At the institutional level, the model structures Patient Safety into 10 major areas and around 100 actions.
In terms of care, it analyzes the development of safety barriers linked to the different processes of the Patient Journey.
Combining both dimensions provides a more complete view of the organization and facilitates:
- to determine its level of development;
- identify strengths and areas for improvement;
- establish priorities;
- to relate actions, responsibilities and processes;
- make comparisons within a homogeneous framework;
- and guide the evolution of the system over time.
Evaluation thus ceases to be an end in itself and becomes an instrument to better understand reality and support decision-making.
From frame of reference to action
Understanding an organization is only the first step. Based on this understanding, objectives can be set, actions prioritized, and specific improvement projects developed.
The Impulse Project therefore allows following a logical sequence:
This same approach is part of the general methodological model developed by Enclave Salud to address complex health management problems.
A practical, measurable, and adaptable reference model
At Enclave Salud, we set out to build that framework. The result: a model that is simple in its approach, but robust in its capacity for analysis and improvement , which allows:
✅ Quantify the degree of development of patient safety in any organization or service.
✅ Set priorities for action based on evidence and not intuition.
✅ To favor the realistic and constructive benchmarking thanks to its standardized structure.
✅ Adapt to different levels of care and management models.
Structure based on the patient journey
The model is built from the patient's care process as the guiding thread (patient journey), and is broken down into:
- 40 key subprocessesadaptable to the reality of each center.
- Un custom process map that reflects the flows and critical security points.
- Identification of interrelationships between processes, where latent risks tend to concentrate.
This modular approach makes the Impulso Project a versatile tool, useful for large hospitals as well as for specific services or smaller centers.
Index and structured indicators of the degree of development of the risk management system
Two main groups of indicators can be distinguished :
- El level of development of the 10 aspects and 100 actions, which reflects the overall maturity of the system.
- El degree of development of the subprocess barriers, which identifies the critical points of the care pathway.
Based on the overall level of development of the system , the model is organized into a structured index of indicators that allows for the analysis of patient safety from a comprehensive perspective.
Both groups are interrelated with roles and functions, care areas and different professional groups , offering a complete view of the level of development and the factors that condition patient safety in each environment.
Results that guide real improvement
Beyond diagnosis, the model allows for planning improvements, measuring progress, and sustaining them over time . It's not a one-off audit, but a practical guide for evolving the patient safety system from within, with a strategic vision.
Patient Safety Officer Portal
A living and evolving space within the Impulse Project, dedicated to those who lead the safety culture in healthcare facilities.
🔹 Resources, functions and practical tools to strengthen patient safety.
Want to know more?
If you are part of a healthcare organization and want to assess your level of development in patient safety with a proven, adaptive and results-oriented tool, the Impulso Project can be the perfect starting point.
👉 Contact us and we'll show you how to get started.
If you would like more information about the Impulso Project or to learn how we can implement it in your organization, please fill out the form and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
