Empowerment and pharmacovigilance

Empowerment and Pharmacovigilance

Baltzidis Anastasios, Qualified Person Nicosia, 17-Sep-2015

Contents

Definition

What is a community?

What is the core of the empowerment ?

The characteristics of the power

What we mean by power?

The empowerment as business process

How empowers employees ?

How ensure that employees stay motivated ?

What is a culture of safety?

Empowerment and Pharmacovigilance | Anastasios Baltzidis | 17-Sep-2015 |

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Empowerment and Pharmacovigilance | Anastasios Baltzidis | 17-Sep-2015 | 3

Empowerment is a process that challenges our

assumptions about the way things are and can be.

It challenges our basic assumptions about

power, helping, achieving, and succeeding.

It is a process that fosters power in people/

employees for use in their communities/ work by

acting on issues they define as important. ex.

safety

Definition


A community can be defined as a occupational group

sharing common characteristics or interests and

perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect

from the larger society within which it exist ex. the

business community, the community of the medical

representatives

What is a community?


At the core of the concept of empowerment is the

idea of power.

The possibility of empowerment depends on two

things:

The power can change.

The power can expand.

What is the core of the empowerment ?


Change: If power cannot change, if it is inherent

in positions or people, then empowerment is not

possible, nor is empowerment conceivable in any

meaningful way. In other words, if power can

change, then empowerment is possible.

Expand: The concept of empowerment depends

upon the idea that power can expand. This

second point reflects our common experiences of

power rather than how we think about power.

The characteristics of the power


Power is often related to our ability to make others do

what we want, regardless of their own wishes or interests

(Weber, 1946).

What we mean by power?

As consequence:

Power does not exist in isolation nor is it inherent in

individuals. Power exists within the context of a

relationship between people.

Since power is created in relationships, power and

power relationships can change.

As consequence the empowerment as a process of

change becomes a meaningful and powerful concept.


In a general way empowerment is a multi-dimensional

social process that helps people gain control over their

own lives in order to act on issues that they define as

important.

In a more limited notion is a multi-dimensional

business process that helps employees to gain control

over their own professional lives in order to act on

issues that they define as important ex. safety

As result empowerment is a business process that

fosters power in employees, for use in their work, by

acting on issues that they define as important ex.

safety

The empowerment as business process (1 of 3)


We must change individually to enable us to

become partners in solving the complex issues of

patient safety facing us.

In collaborations based on mutual respect, diverse

perspectives, and a developing vision, employees

work toward creative and realistic solutions.

This synthesis of individual and collective change of

the employees is our understanding of an

empowerment business process.



The focus is on the connection between individual action

and business action, encouraging individual change

through training sessions and discussions, and

supporting business action through participants' efforts to

change their business context:

ex. a centric patient safety approach.



While we cannot give employees power and we cannot

make them "empowered," we can provide the

opportunities, resources and support that they need to

become involved themselves.

Teach employees skills and knowledge that will

motivate them to take steps to improve their patient

safety knowledge - to be empowered.

How empowers employees ?


Company Head and top executives should develop

a proactive business culture to ensure employees

stay motivated to take initiative

The business management can establish and drive

this type of culture through leading by example.

Employees should want to be leaders in their

workplace because they truly believe in the culture

and goals presented by their business

management.

How ensure that employees stay motivated ?


In the field of patient safety, the phrase “culture of

safety” is used to describe an environment that

encourages full and open disclosure of medical

errors, near-misses and other actual or potential

unanticipated adverse events.

In practice, a culture of safety promotes employee

communications, teamwork and patient-focused care.

What is a culture of safety? (1of 2)


Central to a culture of patient safety is AOCUD:

Acknowledgement that an adverse event or near-

miss took place.

Open conversation with the patient and/or the

patient’s family about that event.

Commitment by the business and health care

professionals to investigate the event.

Understand how it happened.

Determine what steps should be implemented to

prevent a similar event from happening in the future.

What is a culture of safety? (2of 2)


Self Improvement

Empowerment and pharmacovigilance