High Reliability Organizing: new conference next month

Regular readers know that in everyone’s efforts to improve health and care, I’m fascinated by work in other sectors too, because a lot of the ways that medicine falls short of its potential have been solved in other industries.  Our failure to use those methods (too often) is not just a disservice to patients – it’s a disservice to clinicians who work hard, too.

My friend Jim Conway, a titan in the world of safety and quality improvement (LinkedIn), told me about a new conference that may interest you too, if you work in improving quality. He’s keynoting.  I’ll be attending even though I’m not speaking, because anything that semi-retired Conway will focus attention on is good enough for me. As a small new event they’re looking for other sponsors, too, in addition to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations and Dow Chemical:

Institute for High Reliability Organizing

• March 28-30, Fort Worth, hosted by The University of North Texas Health Science Center
• Organization website here.
• Event website here.
• Registration here.

From the event organizers:

This is the only non commercial, international, inter-industry conference that brings together academicians, consultants, and practitioners from vastly different fields to share and leverage research and experiences related to High Reliability. The International HRO Conference series is an event with global attendance and a wide spectrum of industry participants, representing healthcare, petrochemical industry, all forms of transportation, public safety, and business. This conference brings together practitioners who share their success and failure stories at the sharp end of operations. Learning how to fail, recover, and change while maintaining resiliency is basic to the growth of the individual and organization in a complex environment.

The target audience is anyone from industries that have exposure to risks and have experienced threats to their viability. These industries include, but are not limited to, healthcare, banking, education, chemical, petroleum, nuclear, aviation, mining, manufacturing, and rail. HRO practices can help organizations prepare for the unimaginable. They require a change in culture and a willingness to do things differently. But these practices can lead to improved safety, enhanced reliability and a stronger organization.

If you register, let me know – I’d love to meet up!

(A side note: as I’ve thought about how I might spread the impact of my own work, I’ve considered everything you can imagine, including organizing a conference. I found out it’s a LOT of work, and it’s expensive. So I have a feel for the work these folks are doing. Good for them.)