Safety interventions, cultural

The Hopkins team assumed from the outset that safety interventions could only take root if the front line staff were aware of the hazards patients faced and a need for change. A positive safety culture was regarded as essential, by no means sufficient to produce change but a necessary foundation. The safety critical attitudes, beliefs and behaviours need to be embedded at all levels of the organization, so that as far as possible everyone begins with a shared set of assumptions. 

Kim Lyngby Mikkelsen is a medical doctor with a PhD in public health epidemiology. He worked for 10 years as a senior researcher in occupational health safety research, focusing on safety culture and climate, on the development of a Nordic safety climate questionnaire and on safety intervention research. Since 2009 his work has been centred on patient safety, including learning from adverse events. 

This conclusion is also relevant for proactive or preventive action, as in safety intervention. When people receive tools to improve safety, and believe the tools will be accepted and effective to prevent injuries, bystander apathy for safety will decrease. This implies, of course, the need to promote a social responsibility or interdependence norm throughout the culture and teach and support specific intervention strategies or tools to prevent workplace injuries. 

Deming (1991,1992) condemned grades and performance appraisals because they provide a limited picture of an individual s contributions and potential. They might also constrain the number and type of interventions used to improve the quality of a work culture. If, for example, the only procedures implemented to improve safety are those that allow for objective measurement, the number and quality of safety interventions is severely restricted. 

AVT is a fully nondestmctive test, especially suitable to historic stractures because it is performed by just measuring the response in operational conditions, fit turn, the knowledge of global parameters of the building, such as the modal parameters, provides essential information to validate the numerical models currently used to quantitatively estimate the structural safety of Cultural Heritage stractures or to design repair interventions. 

Alongside the Common Features, of Which There are Many in the Field of Safety, a Number of Macro-Scale Cultural and Strategic Differences Still Remain in Terms of Safety Interventions... 

If a local safety intervention has to be undertaken in an enterprise within a specific period of time, rather than expecting to change its culture, the opposite approach should be taken deducing (from an assessment of the culture) what margin exists for real progress to be achieved by the enterprise, in view... 

Another concern in the food safety arena is consumers who may prefer consuming raw or undercooked foods, despite the risks known to them. Although consumers need to be educated about avoiding such foods it is very difficult to change customs and cultures of a population and it may be more effective to consider other more cost-effective interventions (Molins, Motarjemi, and Kaferstein, 2001). However, increased public scrutiny about the use of antibiotics and other additives in the animal feed industry has now directed research toward alternative means for manipulating gastrointestinal microflora in livestock (Castillo et al., 2004). 

Personal habits, cultural practices and individual perceptions strongly influence tbe acceptance of a building and its indoor air quality. Public intervention in non-public buildings and the enforcement of strict indoor air quality regulations beyond the requirements of building codes, fire ordinances and safety rules face serious impediments. 

It is this compensation culture that forms the third aspect of Brown and Hanlon s (2014 3) unholy alliance of official self-importance, media hysteria and commercial exploitation. The commercial opportunities for both consultants and lawyers are seemingly just too tempting to prise them away from safety, and the UK government s attempted intervention in the form of the Compensation Act of 2006 has actually done little to reduce the flow of cases. As a result safety has become enmeshed in a mire of litigation, companies drowning in the evidence of responsibility (not the responsibility itself) and the ongoing quest to shift liability - all of which are of course distractions from the actual business of keeping people safe at work. 

Hale, A.R., Guldenmund, F.W., van Loenhout, P.L.C.H. (2010) Evaluating safety management and culture interventions to improve safety Effective intervention strategies. Safety Science, 48(8), 1026-35. 

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. 

Numerous safety elements help control both the behavior of people at work and the work environment and procedures. No hard-and-fast dividing line can be drawn between elements defining them as either behavior or environmental control. One influences the other. All elements are mini safety culture change interventions and demand certain actions and performances that eventually create behavior and conditions that equate to an ongoing safety culture. 

Safety systan snccesses can be publicized via the weekly safety newsletta, internal email, or be posted on the company s internal website and on the safety notice boards. The more safety conunnnication that takes place during a safety culture change intervention, the better. 

One of the biggest obstacles to safety efforts, the prevention of accidents, and change interventions is the fear factor that snrrounds all aspects of safety at the workplace. Unless this fear factor is identified and the root canses of it eliminated by changing the safety philosophies of the organization, all efforts to introduce a positive safety culture will fail. 

For a safety culture change intervention to be successful, there must be a climate of trust between employees and management. This includes declaring a truce and moving the focus away from injury blame fixing and fault finding to a safe space where injuries can be reported without fear of reprimand—a space where employees safety concerns can be freely expressed. This amnesty is the only way to create a climate in which old embedded safety habits and beliefs can change. 

Many managers will immediately point to the safety department and say that it s their job to manage safety and safety change. It needs to be spelled out very clearly at the beginning of the change intervention that safety culture change must start and be driven at the senior management level or else it will fail. The safety department will play its part, as discussed in Chapter 14. 

This andit would form the launch platform for further innovation and intervention to improve safety culture. 

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