Training leaders for a culture of quality and safety

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the degree to which a quality and safety culture exists after healthcare workers in an academic medical center complete a quality improvement and patient safety education program focused on developing leaders to change the future of healthcare quality and safety. Design/methodology/approach The safety attitudes questionnaire (SAQ) short-form was used for measuring the culture of quality and safety among healthcare workers who were graduates of an academic medical center’s healthcare quality and safety program. A 53 percent response rate from program alumni resulted in 54 usable responses. Findings This study found that 42 (78 percent) of the respondents report that they are currently working in a healthcare quality and safety culture, with 25 (59 percent) reporting promotion into a leadership role after completion of the quality improvement education program. This compares favorably to AHRQ culture of safety survey results obtained by the same academic medical center within the year prior revealing only 63 percent of all inpatient employees surveyed reported working in a quality and safety culture. Research limitations/implications The study design precluded knowing to what degree a quality and safety culture, as measured by the SAQ, existed prior to attending the healthcare quality and safety program. Originality/value This study has practical value for other organizations considering a quality and safety education program. For organizations seeking to build capacity in quality and safety, training future leaders through a robust curriculum is essential. This may be achieved through development of an internal training program or through attending an outside organization for education.

Safety Culture at Primary Healthcare Level: A Cross-Sectional Study among Employees with a Leadership Role

“…Competent and thoughtful leaders contribute to improvements in safety and organisational culture. They understand that systemic flaws exist and that each step in a care process has the potential for failure simply because humans make mistakes (20)(21)(22). This commitment is needed from all organisational leaders (governing boards and clinical leaders) as well as management.…”

Learning in Practice: Collaboration Is the Way to Improve Health System Outcomes

“…QI is now a part of many preregistration training programs in medical, nursing, and allied health disciplines [5,6,7,8]. Organizations have also developed in-house training programs to build capacity for health service redesign [9,10,11].…”

More Than Numbers: Discourses of Health Care Quality in Finland

“…PCC is an important element to improve health care quality (Beattie et al, 2016;Feldman et al, 2019;Gill et al, 2010) and service providers are responsible to concern the quality as system-oriented thinking (Huotari & Havrdová, 2016;Nummela et al, 2019) and to recognize and manage to make sense of it (Martin et al, 2015). Patient-centered communication is essential in patient-clinician interaction and is an important factor in pursuit of PCC.…”

“…Organizational rules influence individuals in formal and informal ways in daily actions (Mills et al, 2010), which construct their meanings in shared practical realitytrue unique and social experiences (Epstein & Street, 2011;Langenberg & Wesseling, 2016). According to Feldman et al (2019), investment in quality and safety culture improvement requires training and support to change process for personnel. Viewpoints of this study results can be used to demonstrate and exploit practical benefits in implementing HCQR to reduce resistance of change, motivate to continuous processing, and achieve HCQR adoption on organizations (Haataja et al, 2012).…”

“…To measure PCC quality in system performance and health care quality, it should be identified by valid indicators, how it appears in health care systems, and by patient-reported experiences and outcomes (Beattie et al, 2016;Santana et al, 2019;Shepherd et al, 2019). To truly evaluate the impact of patientcenteredness, indicators must also reflect family caregiver's perspective to receive feedback, for example, from children, disabled, and elderly people (Feldman et al, 2019;Jeglinsky et al, 2011;Santana et al, 2019).…”