Prof. Rick Iedema
You can WATCH THE LECTURE via the link at the bottom of this page Rick Iedema is a Research Professor in Organisational Communication and Director at the Centre for Health Communication, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney. He focuses on how the organization of clinical work and staff communication impact patients' safety. He has published over 100 research papers in journals such as the Medical Journal of Australia, Social Science & Medicine, International Journal for Quality in Health Care, Organization Studies and Communication & Medicine. He has published four books, including The Discourse of Hospital Communication (2007, editor) and Managing Clinical Processes in Health (co-edited with Ros Sorensen for Elsevier, 2008).
Sources of Safety
This talk proposed that frontline staff need the opportunity to come to terms with their work habits using reflexive methods. Failing such reflexive work, safer ways of working are unlikely to come about: Frontline staff will not know what to change, having become habituated to what they do over the years, and effectively having learned not to notice their own habits. But habits need to be noticed before they can be restructured. This presentation demonstrated that paying reflexive attention to your practices (by viewing footage of your own work) may enable you to draw on strengths and address weaknesses in what you do. The presentation illustrated this reflexive process by drawing on data collected for a recent handover research initiative funded by the Australian Commission on Safety & Quality in Health Care.