2026 Community of Human and Organizational Learning 32nd Annual Conference

In this session, attendees will learn emerging modern safety science principles through the experience of Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS), the leading North American safety network aiming to eliminate serious harm in children’s hospitals. Through an all teach, all learn philosophy, SPS member hospitals are applying proactive safety approaches to achieve breakthrough results. While rooted in healthcare, the principles and tools discussed are broadly applicable to safety-critical work across industries and align with HOP principles. 
Learners will be introduced to SPS proactive safety tools and will be provided an overview of how this structured approach promoted learning from everyday work in network hospitals. Participants will then engage in interactive activities and learn how to apply two specific proactive safety tools: proactive safety huddles and walk-through talk-through. These easy-to-use tools support the creation of safer, more reliable systems by learning from normal work at the frontline in complex operational environments. Proactive safety huddles are an interdisciplinary huddle used to anticipate and mitigate potential risks before an undesirable event occurs. Walk-through talk-through is a method for learning directly from frontline team members about gaps between work-as-done and work-as-imagined for a specific critical task, leading to opportunities for system optimization. 
Proactive safety huddles and walk-through talk-through are specifically designed to support and enhance the performance of our frontline workforce, setting a path to excellence in organizational outcomes. Practical applications will be highlighted so that participants can take these proactive safety tools back to their organizations and immediately put them into use.