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- We go outside of healthcare to see our system
in a new way, and get fresh ideas for improvement.
Today we're going to learn about a safety system
to handle a totally different hazard.
One we rarely face in healthcare.
We're gonna look at dangerous snakes.
Hi, I'm Kathy Duncan.
And today we're going outside of healthcare
to the Central Florida Zoo.
The Central Florida Zoo has a lot to teach us
about safety.
Specifically, we're going to learn three valuable lessons
about reliability.
In order to create reliable systems,
we need to prevent failure,
identify failures and mitigate their effects,
and learn from failure to better design our systems.
How does the zoo apply those concepts
when handling venomous snakes?
- My name is Michele Hoffman.
I'm a reptile keeper at the Central Florida Zoo.
I've been here for four years, and I work with
one of the largest bunches of venomous reptiles
in the Southeast
within AZA zoos.
- Michele took us behind the scenes to show us
how they stay safe when handling snakes,
to clean their enclosures and to move them.
- So,
the red and the green cage cards actually will tell us
at a quick glance
if the snake in the enclosure is venomous or non-venomous.
So, the red obviously is the venomous,
the green is the non-venomous.
Red stop, green go.
- And what's this number one up there?
- The numbers above the enclosures,
actually tell the keepers how many animals are
in the enclosure.
So, for example, there's only one Aruba Island rattlesnake
in here, and there are three pythons in that enclosure.
So, we know if we open the door
and we only see two animals,
there might be one hiding somewhere,
to keep your eyes open and actually find
all of those animals before you reach in
or before you do any work in the enclosure.
- All of this helps prevent snakebites.
But what if a failure does occur?
When keepers handle snakes, they work in pairs,
so that if something goes wrong,
there's a trained person there to help them.
- We're expected to work really closely with our coworkers
and our managers.
We have a very open relationship when it comes to trust
and
being able to speak up.
- They also use a belt clip
with key information about the snake,
such as the antivenom.
- So that way, if something goes wrong,
somebody can come in
from the outside,
know exactly how to handle the situation,
and which antivenom to bring with you to the hospital.
- This helps to reduce harm
if a failure does occur.
The next principle of reliability
is that you may redesign your systems
based on what you've learned from failures.
- It's been over 20 years since we've had
a venomous snakebite here at the Central Florida Zoo.
And one of the reasons for that great track record
is because we are always adapting and adjusting and learning
how to improve our systems to prevent any failures
in the future.
- For example, they used to use a lanyard
instead of the belt clip, with all the snake information.
- We actually switched it to the belt clip
in order for it to be completely out of our way
and not in any sort of position where it could get attached
on anything, or a snake could get hooked around it
or anything like that.
- They also modified their trash barrel
to have a plexiglass window on the top,
so that they could see where the snake is.
- One of the main ways that we do learn
is from other people, other facilities,
other reptile professionals.
So, we're expected to have
close relationships with those colleagues.
If we have a system that maybe went a little bit wrong,
or that maybe wasn't working out the best,
we can go to them and ask for advice,
without feeling like, we're inferior or something like that.
- Every time I visit the zoo, I see opportunities
to standardize, mitigate failure,
and even redesign the work.
But they've taken opportunities
to really look at how they can keep
not only their keepers safe, but they can
keep their animals safe.
So, as you go about your daily work,
and daily life,
look at other opportunities to really see
how you might can bring things back to healthcare.