Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Safety culture assessment: a tool for improving patient safety in healthcare organizations
  1. V F Nieva,
  2. J Sorra
  1. Westat, Research Blvd, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
  1. Correspondence to:
 Dr V F Nieva
 Vice President, Westat, 1650 Research Blvd, Rockville, MD 20850, USA; veronicanieva{at}westat.com

Abstract

Increasingly, healthcare organizations are becoming aware of the importance of transforming organizational culture in order to improve patient safety. Growing interest in safety culture has been accompanied by the need for assessment tools focused on the cultural aspects of patient safety improvement efforts. This paper discusses the use of safety culture assessment as a tool for improving patient safety. It describes the characteristics of culture assessment tools presently available and discusses their current and potential uses, including brief examples from healthcare organizations that have undertaken such assessments. The paper also highlights critical processes that healthcare organizations need to consider when deciding to use these tools.

  • patient safety
  • safety culture assessment

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes

  • The contents of this paper are the work of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the opinions, recommendations, or practices of Westat.