LAUSR

249 Background: A positive safety culture is a major characteristic of a high reliability organization (HRO). At The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, safety is our leading service excellence standard, and because of this, creating a positive safety culture throughout the institution is a top priority. At MD Anderson Sugar Land, we sought to create, improve, and foster a culture of safety throughout all levels of our campus by implementing a new initiative. Methods: The Safe, Attentive, Focused, Engaged (SAFE™) initiative was conceptualized by our leadership team at MD Anderson Sugar Land to improve our safety culture. Improvements were measured by the number of reported safety events, the amount of employee engagement at our weekly safety meetings, and participation in and scores from MD Anderson’s institutional Culture of Safety survey. Results: The SAFE initiative was implemented in April 2017. During the 12 months before its implementation, the average monthly number of reported safety events for our campus was 7.17. During the 12 months after implementation, the average monthly number of reported safety events for our campus was 12.75, a 78% increase over the previous 12 months. An increase in the number of reported events is a key indicator of our move toward a more positive safety culture. Qualitatively, we saw a noticeable increase in attendance and participation in our weekly safety meetings. Furthermore, in February 2018, an institution-wide Culture of Safety survey was distributed, and MD Anderson Sugar Land had 100% participation compared with 87% across MD Anderson as a whole. MD Anderson Sugar Land scored above national benchmarks in 10 of the 14 domains surveyed. Conclusions: A positive safety culture is a requirement for health care organizations to be considered HROs. Identification of methods to achieve that goal can be challenging and time-consuming. At MD Anderson Sugar Land, we implemented an initiative that proved to have a meaningful impact on creating a positive safety culture. Limitations and challenges are continuously being identified, discussed, and addressed among our entire workforce with the goal of improving our culture of safety.