About this Presentation
“High Reliability Organization” (HRO) is commonly used to describe organizations that avoid catastrophes in environments in which accidents might be expected. HRO describes a dynamic, interactive style of engagement that is effectively used in these situations and for operations in these environments. HRO is an effective way an organization can respond to crisis, chaos, and adversity. It gives leadership, management, and all levels of the organization a way of processing challenges and overcoming them as a single unit. HRO can help large teams adapt to potentially threatening and time-sensitive situations, where it can literally be a lifesaver in a chaotic environment. Leaders in various situations and industries—from nuclear power plants to US Navy aircraft carriers—have gained new insights into their organization’s performance through HRO for over 15 years. Its implementation in healthcare recently gained momentum with the Joint Commission’s endorsement of HRO as the Gold Standard in healthcare. Formed in 2008, Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare is focused on transforming healthcare into “a high reliability industry by developing highly effective, durable solutions to healthcare’s most critical safety and quality problems in collaboration with healthcare organizations, by disseminating the solutions widely, and by facilitating their adoption.” HRO implementations of this center started in earnest in 2013. In addition, Secretary of Defense’s mandate to transform the Military Healthcare System (MHS) further grew HRO implementations, following a review of safety, access, and quality in 2014. This review stated that, “The foundation for improving performance in the MHS rests on combining the concepts of an integrated healthcare system with those of high reliability organizations.” Besides healthcare, High Reliability Organizing has been spreading to many industries including chemical process safety, communications, manufacturing, dams, defense industrial base, emergency services, energy, financial services, food and agriculture, government facilities, information technology, transportation systems, water and wastewater systems, railroads, school systems, wildland and urban firefighting. The HRO principles become counterintuitive in application or operation. In this presentation we will first describe the basics of HRO and the limits of logic and rationality in these environments. Then we will describe a different logic of operations developed from combined affective-cognitive thought to create a flexible and agile individual and organizational response and an adaptive program for growth and resilience with examples from healthcare and other high-risk industries. Subsequently, we will discuss, how TOC can assist in elevating organizations to become HROs. Specifically, applicability of buffer management techniques will be described for HRO implementations using TOC thinking processes framework: Why Change? What to Change? What to Change to? Video length: . PDF: slides.
What Will You Learn
To help you get the most value from this session, we’ve highlighted a few key points. These takeaways capture the main ideas and practical insights from the presentation, making it easier for you to review, reflect, and apply what you’ve learned.
High Reliability Organizations (HROs) aim to create zero harm in high-risk operations. They have processes and structures in place to prevent accidents.
The transition to becoming an HRO involves changing the culture of the organization from a blame culture to a preventive culture.
HROs are characterized by a preoccupation with failure, sensitivity to operations, reluctance to simplify, commitment to resilience, and deference to expertise.
Instructor(s)
Bahadir Inozu, Ph.D
Dr. Baha Inozu is the cofounder and CEO of Sharp Focus, Inc., and a faculty member at the University of Southern California. He has collaborated with more than forty organizations to improve performance and reliability across a range of sectors. Internationally recognized for his expertise in system reliability and performance improvement, Dr. Inozu specializes in integrating leading methodologies to achieve high-impact outcomes. He currently supports the SafeMTS project as a Subject Matter Expert and contributes to the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) for the U.S. Navy.
His research centers on identifying and applying best practices from high-risk industries to advance safety and reliability. He is the co-author of High Reliability for a Highly Unreliable World. Previously, he served as CEO of NOVACES and as Chairman of the School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the University of New Orleans.