Promoting Resilience and Excellence May Improve Safety More than Focusing on Negative Outcomes Alone

​All healthcare professionals face an "unspoken expectation" that they will undertake three roles: one that focuses on their clinical responsibilities; one that focuses on maintaining patient safety across organizational systems; and one that seeks opportunities for improving quality, say the authors of an article in the April 2019 issue ofAnaesthesia. The authors say that clinical and organizational work can be made safer if organizations promote resilience and excellence, rather than simply addressing negative outcomes. The authors define resilience as "everyday performance variability that provides the adaptations that are needed to produce good outcomes, both when conditions are favourable and when they are not." The authors looked at two strength-based approaches they suggest could improve systems: appreciative inquiry and positive deviance.