Patient Safety Culture and Organisational Behaviour

Patient Safety Culture and Organisational Behaviour Integrating Error, Leadership and the Work Environment... 

Leadership is another important determinant of patient safety culture and patient safety outcomes (Katz-Navon et al. 2009 Wong and Cummings 2007). This is because leaders are often the drivers of safety culture within the organisation. They set the example for employees through their behaviours (Maierhofer et al. 2000). They also shape subordinate behaviour through the provision of rewards or punishments (Hinze 2002). When leaders take time to discuss safety with employees, employees demonstrate less unsafe behaviour (Zohar and Luria 2003). Similarly, if leaders do not make safety a priority among their team, this will be... 

Summarising the various concepts and definitions proposed, safety culture appears to be the broader, manifest concept behind the fiamewoik of safety climate. Safety cultme is the source for patterns of behaviour which can be observed, described and changed (Goodmaim 2004), whereas safely climate is the sum of behaviours and attitudes based on common assumptions and beliefs toward patient safety. Cox and Flin (1998) describe culture as an organisation s personality while climate is seen as the organisation s mood . 

In order to identify areas of organisational culture that could be targeted to improve patient safety in Scottish hospitals, a safety culture survey was conducted. The aims of the study were first, to obtain a measure of safety culture from a sample of NHS acute hospitals in Scotland and then to test whether these culture scores were associated with clinical workers safety behaviours and patient and worker injuries. This would also provide a measure of safety culture within the Scottish acute hospital sector and contribute an organisational cultural perspective to the... 

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