Table 2

Percentage of respondents who agreed with questions in the Safety Climate Scale in aviation and in our survey stratified by provider type

	Overall (N = 395)	Physicians (N = 26)	Staff nurse (N = 169)	Nurse manager (N = 29)	Pharmacist (N = 84)	Other staff (N = 87)
*p<0.05 (χ² test for differences) in any provider type compared with others.
To place our results into a comparative context for evaluating culture in safety critical environments, we compared our aggregate safety climate score for the JHH with a distribution of safety climate scores from a cross cultural sample of 13 commercial airlines. The first seven items shown in table 2 are analogous to the aviation safety climate scale. For comparisons between aviation and medicine, a mean summary score of these safety climate items was calculated using the JHH data. Figure 1 shows the relative position of safety climate at the JHH in a distribution of airlines from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.⁸ The safety climate at the JHH ranked highly in this distribution of safety climates from aviation.
1. The senior leaders in my hospital listen to me and care about my concerns	49	46	49	55	48	51
2. The physician and nurse leaders in my area listen to me and care about my concerns	70*	76	71	90	67	61
3. My suggestions about safety would be acted upon if I expressed them to management	62*	56	57	86	56	72
4. Management/leadership will never compromise safety concerns for productivity	64*	38	58	76	67	74
5. I am encouraged by my supervisors and co-workers to report any unsafe conditions I observe	78*	54	84	97	65	84
6. I know the proper channels to report my safety concerns	79*	46	86	97	63	85
7. I am satisfied with availability of clinical leadership (MD, RN, RPh)	70*	77	73	66	55	76
8. Leadership is driving us to be a safety centred institution	52*	50	51	48	47	62
9. I am aware that patient safety has become a major area for improvement in my institution	69*	54	63	69	73	78
10. I believe that most adverse events occur as a result of multiple system failures, and are not attributable to one individual’s actions	69*	69	68	69	76	64