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Culture Club
A recent report by the Institute of Medicine, To Err Is Human, Building a Safer Health Care System, illustrates a critical element of successful safety programs; the promotion of an organizational culture of safety. During the course of the study, one overriding lesson emerges: the creation of a "patient safety culture"—as the critical element in making patients safer.
This theory holds true for virtually every industry. In order to promote safety in the workplace, organizations must develop strategies that instill a "safety culture" among employees. The first includes a wide-ranging organizational change in strategies, while the others describe more specific approaches. Regardless of method, the goal is a safety culture that promotes continuing innovation and improvement.
Problem:
The local medical centers of an integrated group-model health maintenance organization recently recognized the need to improve safety conditions in their medical centers. Not only for their patients, but the organization needed to develop a safety program that would improve employee retention and overall job satisfaction.
Solution:
Instead of implementing a basic reward program recognizing safety statistics, the organization embarked on a journey to overhaul their entire corporate culture. Their goal? Promote an environment that awarded effective teamwork and communication in high-risk areas. Part of the program included the initiation of a preoperative safety briefing and a perinatal patient safety project.
Result:
Success! The medical centers reported a doubling in the proportion of operating room staff reporting positive teamwork climate. In addition to providing a safer environment for their patients, the organization improved working conditions and experienced a two-thirds reduction in the turnover rate among operating room nursing staff
Source: "Committed to Safety: Ten Case Studies on Reducing Harm to Patients" by Douglas McCarthy and David Blumenthal, M.D. Taken from The Commonwealth Fund Newsletter, Volume 17, April 27, 2006.