Implementing a national strategy for patient safety: lessons from the National Health Service in England

Hospital mortality: when failure is not a good measure of success

“…[4][5][6][7][8] Although efforts to measure performance represent welcome developments, the focus on the hospital standardized mortality ratio, especially when the ratio is derived solely from administrative data, goes against the results of decades of investigation. 9,10 Proposed strategies to measure and improve hospital performance efforts have included the establishment of national patient safety agencies, 11 mandatory accreditation, 12 financial incentives 13 and publicly reported performance measures. 14 Performance measures have targeted structure (e.g., patient volumes and recommended staffing patterns for intensive care 15 ), process (e.g., report cards on adherence to recommended aspects of care for patients with acute myocardial infarction and pneumonia 16 ) and outcomes.…”

Views on patient safety by operations managers in somatic hospital care: a qualitative analysis

“…A safety culture or policy is necessary before other patient safety methods are introduced. Otherwise, individuals are expected to implement safety before the staff knows how they work best together and communicate most effectively [26]. To continuously evaluate the safety climate and the attitudes of the staff is thus necessary in order to maintain the patient safety culture in a workplace.…”

“…To continuously evaluate the safety climate and the attitudes of the staff is thus necessary in order to maintain the patient safety culture in a workplace. The self-evaluation instrument Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture focusing on systems and the responsibility of staff is a good example of this essential point [26,28].…”

“…A culture which supports and promotes safety is identified as a key factor for improving patient safety. A safety culture demands that balance is obtained between the system and the individual which means that healthcare professionals are responsible for their activities when it comes to conducting systematic patient safety work [26,27]. A safety culture or policy is necessary before other patient safety methods are introduced.…”

Improving patient safety in cataract surgery

“…1 Medical errors are estimated to occur in 10% of admissions. 2 The trend is to try to improve systems, rather than blame individual healthcare workers.…”