How To Use the Toolkit for Improving Perinatal Safety

The Toolkit consists of three pillars—Teamwork and Communication for Perinatal Safety, Perinatal Safety Strategies, and In Situ Simulation—that a labor and delivery unit can use to teach team members how to apply the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) to prevent obstetrical adverse events. Use of this toolkit to create or enhance a culture of patient safety can significantly reduce preventable errors.

The pillars contain the following materials:

Slide sets (PowerPoint): Slide sets are the main vehicle for communicating each concept within the three pillars. They can be viewed by individual users or presented to a group by a facilitator or leader.

Facilitator guides (Word and PDF): The facilitator guides accompany the slide sets and provide facilitators a script to use when presenting the slides. The Word versions can be edited to meet presentation needs. The PDF versions can be altered using Adobe Acrobat (but not Adobe Reader) and are bookmarked for easy access to each slide.

Tools (Word and PowerPoint): The tools help teams implement the concepts in each pillar. Tools include items such as checklists, information sheets, forms, worksheets, and slide sets. Some materials can be modified to fit a team's needs.

Users unfamiliar with CUSP might want to start with the module Teamwork and Communication for Perinatal Safety because it will help users understand how CUSP is applied to the perinatal safety environment. The Perinatal Safety Strategies pillar presents four perinatal safety concepts. The pillar In Situ Simulation should be used last because it teaches users how to use in situ simulation to practice the skills learned in the other two pillars.

Links to these products are located on the pages for each pillar, accessible through the Toolkit Pillars page.