RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Making soft intelligence hard: a multi-site qualitative study of challenges relating to voice about safety concerns
JF BMJ Quality & Safety
JO BMJ Qual Saf
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP bmjqs-2017-007579
DO 10.1136/bmjqs-2017-007579
A1 Graham P Martin
A1 Emma-Louise Aveling
A1 Anne Campbell
A1 Carolyn Tarrant
A1 Peter J Pronovost
A1 Imogen Mitchell
A1 Christian Dankers
A1 David Bates
A1 Mary Dixon-Woods
YR 2018
UL http://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/early/2018/02/19/bmjqs-2017-007579.abstract
AB Background Healthcare organisations often fail to harvest and make use of the ‘soft intelligence’ about safety and quality concerns held by their own personnel. We aimed to examine the role of formal channels in encouraging or inhibiting employee voice about concerns.Methods Qualitative study involving personnel from three academic hospitals in two countries. Interviews were conducted with 165 participants from a wide range of occupational and professional backgrounds, including senior leaders and those from the sharp end of care. Data analysis was based on the constant comparative method.Results Leaders reported that they valued employee voice; they identified formal organisational channels as a key route for the expression of concerns by employees. Formal channels and processes were designed to ensure fairness, account for all available evidence and achieve appropriate resolution. When processed through these formal systems, concerns were destined to become evidenced, formal and tractable to organisational intervention. But the way these systems operated meant that some concerns were never voiced. Participants were anxious about having to process their suspicions and concerns into hard evidentiary facts, and they feared being drawn into official procedures designed to allocate consequence. Anxiety about evidence and process was particularly relevant when the intelligence was especially ‘soft’—feelings or intuitions that were difficult to resolve into a coherent, compelling reconstruction of an incident or concern. Efforts to make soft intelligence hard thus risked creating ‘forbidden knowledge’: dangerous to know or share.Conclusions The legal and bureaucratic considerations that govern formal channels for the voicing of concerns may, perversely, inhibit staff from speaking up. Leaders responsible for quality and safety should consider complementing formal mechanisms with alternative, informal opportunities for listening to concerns.