RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Organisational readiness: exploring the preconditions for success in organisation-wide patient safety improvement programmes
JF Quality and Safety in Health Care
JO Qual Saf Health Care
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP 313
OP 317
DO 10.1136/qshc.2008.030759
VO 19
IS 4
A1 Susan Burnett
A1 Jonathan Benn
A1 Anna Pinto
A1 Anam Parand
A1 Sandra Iskander
A1 Charles Vincent
YR 2010
UL http://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/19/4/313.abstract
AB Background Patient safety has been high on the agenda for more than a decade. Despite many national initiatives aimed at improving patient safety, the challenge remains to find coherent and sustainable organisation-wide safety-improvement programmes. In the UK, the Safer Patients' Initiative (SPI) was established to address this challenge. Important in the success of such an endeavour is understanding ‘readiness’ at the organisational level, identifying the preconditions for success in this type of programme. This article reports on a case study of the four NHS organisations participating in the first phase of SPI, examining the perceptions of organisational readiness and the relationship of these factors with impact by those actively involved in the initiative.Materials and methods A mixed-methods design was used, involving a survey and semistructured interviews with senior executive leads, the principal SPI programme coordinator and the four operational leads in each of the SPI clinical work areas in all four organisations taking part in the first phase of SPI.Conclusions This preliminary work would suggest that prior to the start of organisation-wide quality- and safety-improvement programmes, organisations would benefit from an assessment of readiness with time spent in the preparation of the organisational infrastructure, processes and culture. Furthermore, a better understanding of the preconditions that mark an organisation as ready for improvement work would allow policymakers to set realistic expectations about the outcomes of safety campaigns.