A Comprehensive Strategy for Sustaining a Systemwide Safety Culture in Today's Health Care Environment.

Abstract

Background: Culture is the culmination of shared values and beliefs transformed into behaviors, which ultimately influence outcomes.

Problem: This transformation is often nonlinear, warranting continual attention to organizational trends and current events in health care.

Approach: Our comprehensive approach included assessing the current safety culture state, building inclusive and collaborative relationships, socializing and disseminating new shared safety language and behaviors, and engaging both formal and informal safety leaders. Interventions occurred monthly and recurred quarterly for 12 months, which provided consistent exposure.

Outcomes: There was a 0.17 increase in staff's perceptions that mistakes were not held against them and a 65% increase in good catch submissions. While these outcomes cannot be causally linked to the refreshed safety culture strategy, similar measurements may be used as proxy measures of success.

Conclusions: Safety culture should be consistently assessed. When improvement needs are identified, a comprehensive, evidence-based, inclusive strategy should be utilized and continually re-evaluated.