Promoting health care safety through training high reliability teams.
This commentary discusses the factors that promote high-reliability organizations (HROs) and how those factors, such as the development of high-reliability teams (HRTs), translate to health care settings. The authors define the features of HROs before exploring the concept of HRTs that are integral to their success and mission. They further outline the values embodied among HRTs and offer guidelines on how these support the development of HROs. Finally, the authors provide mechanisms by which health care teams can achieve high-reliability status and what strategies might be effective for development. The authors conclude that an ongoing effort to improve safety through an emphasis on teams requires understanding of the factors that make them successful.