Safety culture effecting cultural change

Safety authority is the total influence, rights, and ability of the position to conunand and demand safety actions. Management has ultimate safety authority, and therefore is the only echelon that can effectively initiate, implement, and maintain an effective SMS and create safety culture changes. Leadership has the authority to implement and maintain safety, and also the authority to take necessary remedial measures if there are deviations from accepted safety practices and norms. 

Positive behavior reinforcement is one of the vital ingredients to safety success, especially to safety culture change interventions. Of all the efforts and functions carried out by leadership, positive behavior reinforcanent is likely to have the greatest effect on the success of the safety systan and consequent culture change. 

Different metrics may be used to describe past performance, predict future performance, and encourage behavioral change. They are a means to evaluate the overall system performance and to develop a path toward superior process safety performance. This is accomplished by identifying where the current performance falls within a spectrum of excellent-to-poor performance. Such information will allow executives and site management to develop plans to address the specific improvement opportunities that could lead to measurable improvement in process safety. Good process safety metrics reinforce a process safety culture that promotes the belief that process safety incidents are preventable, that improvement is continuous, and that policies and procedures are necessary and will be followed. Continuous improvement is necessary and any improvement program will be based on measurable elements. Therefore, to continuously improve performance, organizations must develop and implement effective process safety metrics. 

Harvey, J., Bolam, H. D., Gregory, D., Erdos, G. (2001). The effectiveness of training to change safety culture and attitudes within a highly regulated environment. Personnel Review, 30, 615-646. 

Alcoa Work hard to prevent all accident (Health Safety Overview 2008). 1. HSE rules and criterion. 2. Believe that safety is primarily about cultural change, the ultimate objective is to institutionalize effective safety management. 3. Safety plan and behavior. 4. Indoctrinating culture of zero injuries and illnesses. 

This study goes beyond much of the earlier research and— following the approach of Hunt and Habeck (1993) and Hunt et al. (1993)—seeks to estimate the role of HRM practices in the determination of workers compensation costs in a multivariate framework. It uses a workplace safety model that incorporates a wider variety of HRM practices than has been previously employed. In particular, it analyzes the impact of the three important dimensions of HRM practices on safety employee participation in decision making, employee participation in financial returns, and the firm s management safety culture. In addition, this is the first study to consider file effect of each of these factors on claim frequency and claim severity, and to ask whether any observed change is file result of changes in technical efficiency or moral hazard (principal-agent) incentives. 

A management that wants to achieve a culture change is best served if the deficiencies noted and the proposals for improvement made in audit reports principally effect safety management systems. Successes of safety audits are determined by how they affect the organization s culture. (See Chapter 22, On Safety, Health, and Environmental Audits. )... 

Without safety amnesty no safety management system can be fuUy effective, and changing a safety culture will be almost impossible. Safety cultures can only be nurtured in a safe space. 

Table 9.5 depicts possible outcome indicators. These indicators can be seen as the result of the oiganisation s safety culture and the effects of situational and environmental variability, such as the nature of the patient s illness or injury or the fatigue of the clinician. The aggre tion of these outputs into an outcome indicator can provide the organisation with clues about possible changes to their safety potential. 

Recognizing patients and families as active participants in the system of care brings a wealth of expertise as well as additional safety nets to the sharp end of care. Discussions around important questions— What is the right care How is care most effectively delivered What is important to patients and families (consumers) about their health care What do health professionals need to know abont continually improving care —are propelling us toward a new frontier in om im-derstanding of care delivery (Morath, 1999). The answers to these qnestions lead us to the conclusion that the best health care experience is achieved with an informed patient and family (consumer), and the patient s and family s (consumer s) inclusion calls for cultural changes in our health care system. 

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