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Developing a safe organizational culture
Creating a safe organizational culture in health care settings is important for both patients and employees. All levels of management and staff have a role in developing a nurturing environment where patients and employees can speak up about unsafe practice.
Here are some guiding questions you can use to reflect on your organizational culture:
- What do your organizational policies say about workplace health and safety?
- Do these policies address patient safety?
- Are safe and healthy behaviours, language and attitudes a priority? For example: when a staff member doesn’t like a colleague, the expectation is that the staff member needs to be professional with that colleague
- What strategies do you use to communicate these expectations to your staff?
- Do all levels of staff/management, consistently demonstrate and model safe and healthy behaviours?
- Are employees encouraged to identify and report patient safety issues? For example, with colleagues, through an incident reporting system or to management?
- Is there a safe and accessible method for employees to raise concerns?
- Do widely accepted practices in the organization support health and safety?
How is patient safety culture developed?
Communication: Create a blame free environment where employees speak up about patient safety issues with a focus on preventing future issues
Role-Modeling: Promote trust by demonstrating a continuous quality improvement of attitudes and actions regarding unsafe practice
Support: Support employees who speak up
Sharing Information: When relevant, share information to prevent a future situation
