AIHI Seminar - Associate Professor Jessica Mesman

TOWARDS AN EXNOVATIVE TURN IN PATIENT SAFETY RESEARCH

Abstract

In this presentation Jessica Mesman will take the opportunity to discuss her efforts to make a difference in practices related to patient safety. She will reflect critically on the dominant understanding of patient safety. According to her the improvement of patient safety should not only be based on error-reducing activities, but also on a sophisticated understanding of the vigour of health care practices. The exploration of latent resources can be considered as a form of exnovation. This approach can be characterised as ‘innovation from within’. In her presentation she will outline an alternative research agenda: one that has its focus on the presence of safety and on the competencies of front-line clinicians to preserve adequate levels of safety within real-life complexities.

Speaker profile

Jessica Mesman is Associate Professor in the field of Science and Technology Studies at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Her current research interests include the anthropology of epistemic cultures in medicine, the method of exnovative ethnography and video-reflexivity, as well as the development of a positive approach to patient safety. In order to develop her arguments in these areas she studies informal and unarticulated dimensions of establishing and preserving safety in health care practices.