Tampa General Hospital Advances High-Reliability Journey With First-of-Its-Kind Certification

The academic medical center at TGH Davis Islands builds on nationally recognized safety programs with a new certification milestone and a reliability management platform being developed with Palantir to help teams identify and address risk earlier.

TAMPA, Fla., Nov. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Tampa General Hospital (TGH) has earned Collaborative High Reliability® Organization (CHRO) certification from SG Collaborative Solutions, LLC for its academic medical center at TGH Davis Islands, becoming the first organization to achieve the designation. The milestone advances Tampa General's multiyear effort to build a culture of safety and the infrastructure to help teams identify, understand and proactively manage risk.

The certification evaluates the structure supporting Collaborative High Reliability at Tampa General's academic medical center, bringing together its Collaborative Just Culture and Reliability Management Team programs with an emerging Reliability Management System (RMS). For patients and families, the goal is straightforward: help teams recognize potential problems earlier and act before those risks affect care.

"High reliability begins with a culture where people trust one another, feel safe speaking up, and understand that identifying risk is everyone's responsibility," said John Couris, president and CEO of Florida Health Sciences Center | Tampa General. "This milestone reflects our commitment to ensuring that culture is ingrained in how we work every day. By pairing the expertise of our team members and physicians with new ways to anticipate risk, we are building a stronger foundation for safe, reliable, world-class care."

A key component of Tampa General's next phase of high reliability is its emerging Reliability Management System (RMS). Building on standards and a framework structured with SG Collaborative Solutions, Tampa General is partnering with Palantir to develop the system's analytical capabilities. Drawing conceptually on reliability practices used in aviation, RMS is designed to bring together information from organizational data sources and dashboards to help risk subject-matter experts monitor processes and assess emerging risks.

"Our next step is to connect the culture we have built with the infrastructure that helps us see and understand risk more clearly," said Dr. Peggy Duggan, executive vice president, chief physician executive and chief medical officer of Florida Health Sciences Center. "The Reliability Management System represents an important evolution in that work, providing a framework to help our experts better understand where risk is emerging and where to focus our attention."

"Data becomes meaningful when teams can use it to make better-informed decisions about where to focus their attention," said Dr. Laura Haubner, senior vice president and chief quality officer at Tampa General. "As the Reliability Management System moves into use, evaluating how it performs will be a critical part of understanding how it supports our teams and advances safer, more reliable care."

The new milestone builds on Tampa General's earlier national firsts. In March 2023, Tampa General became the first academic medical center in the United States to receive qualifications for both its Collaborative Just Culture Program® and Reliability Management Team™.

According to K. Scott Griffith, founder and president of SG Collaborative Solutions, "The CHRO and CJCP certifications achieved by Tampa General Hospital represent the highest standards of reliability and safety available today, based on decades of development in high-consequence industries. Being the first to meet these standards places Tampa General Hospital at the forefront of evidence-based improvement in healthcare."

Those qualifications recognized the programs and teams established to see, understand and manage risk and marked foundational steps toward CHRO certification.

In March 2024, University of South Florida Tampa General Physicians (USFTGP) became the first academic medical group in the nation to earn qualification for its Collaborative Just Culture Program®.

Following its initial qualifications, Tampa General successfully completed requalification, demonstrating the continued maturity and performance of its Collaborative Just Culture and Reliability Management Team programs. The CHRO certification takes a broader view of how these programs work together across the academic medical center, including the structure intended to support more predictive risk management.

Collaborative Just Culture supports safety and trust by balancing individual and organizational accountability and encouraging teams to identify and discuss risks. Reliability management provides a structured approach to understanding those risks and strengthening the processes that support consistent care. Together, these efforts reflect Tampa General's ongoing commitment to learning, continuous improvement and building safety into the everyday work of its team members and physicians.

ABOUT TAMPA GENERAL HOSPITAL
Tampa General Hospital, Florida's premier academic health system, is a 1,530-bed not-for-profit network of hospital and outpatient services spanning Florida. As the only center for Level l trauma and comprehensive burn care center serving 23 counties, Tampa General delivers world-class care. The system's hospitals include Tampa General Hospital, Tampa General Rehabilitation Hospital, Tampa General Behavioral Health Hospital, all in Tampa; Tampa General Brooksville, Tampa General Spring Hill and Tampa General Crystal River. Tampa General is the highest-ranked hospital in Tampa Bay in U.S. News & World Report's 2026-2027 Best Hospitals for 11 consecutive years, with five medical specialties ranking among the top 50, two additional medical specialties ranked among the top 100 best hospital programs and two specialties ranked in the top 10% in the United States. As the first hospital in Florida to open a clinical command center for real-time situational awareness, the academic health system has elevated its digital care coordination center to the next level by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and its analytics platform across inpatient and outpatient care to ensure patients receive leading-edge care as quickly and safely as possible. Tampa General's commitment to growing and developing its team members is recognized by four prestigious Forbes magazine rankings — in the 2026 America's Best Large Employers ranked as the Tampa Bay region's #1 employer in the healthcare category for the sixth year in a row, the 2026 America's Best Employers for Company Culture, in the top 100 for the 2026 American's Best Employers for New Grads and the 2026 America's Best Employers for Women.

Tampa General is the area's safety-net hospital, caring for anyone regardless of ability to pay; in fiscal year 2024, Tampa General provided a net community benefit of approximately $289.1 million in the form of healthcare for underinsured patients, community education and financial support to community health organizations in Tampa Bay. It is recognized as one of the leading adult solid organ transplant centers in the nation and is the primary teaching hospital for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. With five medical helicopters, Tampa General transports critically injured or ill patients from surrounding counties to receive the advanced care their conditions require. Tampa General has a nationally accredited comprehensive stroke center and its 32-bed Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit is the largest on the West Coast of Florida. It is home to the Muma Children's Hospital at TGH, the Jennifer Leigh Muma 82-bed neonatal intensive care unit and a nationally accredited rehabilitation center. Tampa General's footprint includes TGH North, which consists of three hospitals and several outpatient locations in Citrus and Hernando counties; Tampa General Medical Group Primary Care offices; TGH Family Care Center Kennedy; TGH outpatient centers; TGH Virtual Health; and TGH Imaging outpatient radiology centers throughout Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Palm Beach counties. Tampa Bay area residents receive world-class care from the TGH Urgent Care, powered by the Fast Track network of clinics. To see a medical care professional live anytime, anywhere on a smartphone, tablet or computer, visit Virtual Health | Tampa General Hospital (tgh.org). For more information, go to www.tgh.org.

About Innovative Auditing Solutions, LLC
Innovative Auditing Solutions, LLC (IAS) is an independent auditing organization specializing in Collaborative High Reliability^(R) Organization (CHRO) and Collaborative Just Culture^(R) Program (CJCP) certification. IAS conducts independent, standards-based audits that evaluate organizational implementation and performance, supporting continuous improvement, workplace justice, collaborative risk management, and high reliability. Serving healthcare and other high-risk industries, IAS is committed to advancing organizational reliability through objective, collaborative, and proficiency-based certification assessments.

For more information, visit www.innovativeauditing.com.

ABOUT SG COLLABORATIVE SOLUTIONS
Scott Griffith Collaborative Solutions, LLC (dba SG Collaborative Solutions, LLC) is an enterprise standards and risk management firm specializing in reliable performance in high-consequence industries and organizations. COLLABORATIVE JUST CULTURE^®, COLLABORATIVE HIGH RELIABILITY^®, and SEQUENCE OF RELIABILITY^® are trademarks of Scott Griffith Collaborative Solutions, LLC, SG Collaborative Solutions licenses Innovative Auditing Solutions, LLC to utilize CJCP and CHRO standards for the purpose of independent, conflict-free verification and audits. Innovative Auditing Solutions, LLC provides third-party validation that programs, teams, and organizations meet the CJCP and CHRO standards. For more information about SG Collaborative Solutions, visit https://sgcpartners.com.

Media Contact: Beth Hardy, APR
Assistant Manager
Publications & Physician Communications
(727) 510-6363 (cell)
[email protected]

SOURCE Tampa General Hospital