Enhancing safety culture through improved incident reporting: A case study in translational research
File(s)
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The Imperial College Healthcare National Health Service Trust, a large health care provider in London, together with an academic research unit, used a learning health systems cycle of interventions. The goals were to improve patient safety incident reporting and learning and shape a more just organizational safety culture. Following a phase of feedback gathering from front-line staff, seven evidence-based interventions were implemented and evaluated from October 2016 to August 2018. Indicators of safety culture, incident reporting rates, and reported rates of harm to patients and "never events" (events that should not happen in medical practice) were continuously monitored. In this article we report on this initiative, including its early results. We observed improvement on some measures of safety culture and incident reporting rates. Staff members' perceptions of six of the seven interventions were positive. The intervention exercise demonstrated the importance of health care policies in supporting local ownership of safety culture and encouraging the application of rigorous research standards.
Date Issued
2018-11
Date Acceptance
2018-11-01
Citation
Health Affairs, 2018, 37 (11), pp.1797-1804
ISSN
0278-2715
Publisher
Project HOPE
Start Page
1797
End Page
1804
Journal / Book Title
Health Affairs
Volume
37
Issue
11
Copyright Statement
© 2018 Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.
Sponsor
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust- BRC Funding
National Institute for Health Research
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30395492
Grant Number
RDB04
n/a
Subjects
Patient safety
Safety culture
incident reporting
translational research
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Date Publish Online
2018-11-05