Duties of Managers for Patient Safety Culture

Establishing a patient safety culture is essential for hospitals to provide reliable healthcare services. In addition, the positive effect of this situation on organizational justice is also important in terms of health workers' adoption and trust in their institutions.

Failure to establish effective communication between healthcare professionals, which is one of the patient safety goals, can lead to patient malpractice, patient harm, or death. Indeed, in a report published by CRICO Strategies in 2016, the Harvard Foundation for Risk Management in Medical Institutions reported that at least 30% of errors in the United States were due to ineffective communication, with 1,744 deaths over five years and malpractice costs of $1.7 billion.

Communication problems, which have such a high impact on the occurrence of medical errors, can be reduced or eliminated by teamwork between units and management support. According to Greenberg (1990), managers' conveying sufficient information to employees about their behaviors and the processes applied affects employees' judgments about process justice and their adoption and trust in their institutions. Similar is the case for management support for patient safety and teamwork between units. Accountability of managers is important in terms of both developing a sense of organizational justice and creating a patient safety culture. In this sense, health institution managers' encouragement of teamwork among units is effective in developing both organizational justice and patient safety culture.

It is very important for managers to be role models in terms of leadership in the formation of a patient safety culture and to support practices. When leaders question the system instead of who made the mistake, the patient safety culture will begin to change and develop. In addition, the positive attitude of the leaders of the organization in the face of mistakes will ensure that employees report mistakes and feedback will have positive results.

10 Things Leaders Must Do to Create a Patient Safety Culture;

• Explicitly embracing the importance of patient safety
• Ensuring that it is a priority for the organization
• Identifying the monitoring criteria/indicators to improve patient safety
• Supporting and empowering employees
• Involving everyone in developing a system of consistent rules across the organization.
• Not allowing personal exemptions/privileges within the organization
• Allowing everyone to have a say
• Making continuous improvement a corporate culture
• Ensuring that providing safe health care is seen as a never-ending endeavor in the organization
• Ensuring continuous awareness

Bibliography

• Hacettepe Sağlık İdaresi Dergisi, 2016; 19(1):1-16, Hasta Güvenliği Kültürünün Algılanan Örgütsel Adalet Üzerine Etkisi, Mahmut AKBOLAT İlknur Rabia SIRAKAYA
• Joint Commission International 2018, Communicating Clearly and Effectively to Patients How to Overcome Common Communication Challenges in Health Care.
• Dumlupınar Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 28 (DergiPark), Hasta Güvenliği Kültürünün Sağlık Çalışanları Tarafından Algılanmasına Yönelik Bir Araştırma, Doktor Öğretim Görevlisi Orhan ADIGÜZEL Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi İİBF Sağlık Yönetimi Bölümü
• Hasta Güvenliği ve Sağlık Finansmanı Dergisi Temmuz 2018, Hasta Güvenliğinde Liderlik Konusunda Sağlık Çalışanlarının Görüşlerinin Belirlenmesi
• IntelliCentrics, 10 Things Healthcare Leaders Must Do to Create a Culture of Safety