Culture of Safety

Enhancing the culture of safety in health care facilities is significant in reducing and preventing errors thus making better the overall quality of healthcare (Ammouri, Tailakh, Muliira, Geethakrishnan& Al Kindi, 2015). Different researchers have indicated variations with regards to the perceptions of the culture of safety in different job descriptions and organizations. In the past surveys, there have been reported complaints from nurses who have registered claims of lack of blame-free environment. Further, care providers at all levels have also noted that there are problems with the commitment of organizations to put in place a culture of safety. The primary reasons for the lack of developed safety cultures in care organizations are complicated with communication, low expectation cultures, authority challenges and poor teamwork playing significant roles (Ammouri, Tailakh, Muliira, Geethakrishnan& Al Kindi, 2015). The culture of casting blame on individuals is still dominant in the healthcare environment. This culture widely impairs the culture of safety. 

There are several effects created by the culture of safety. The first impact is that it enables a just culture in which individuals especially the health practitioners are given a platform where they can identify and address systems issues which make them discuss why they engage in unsafe behaviors. The culture of safety also ensures that individuals maintain accountability by putting up zero tolerance for careless behaviors. It also helps individuals to distinguish between human error, which often comes as slips, and risk behavior such as taking shortcuts (Ammouri, Tailakh, Muliira, Geethakrishnan& Al Kindi, 2015). Multiple determinants of the culture of safety depend on inter-professional relationships. It is important to note that safety culture usually occurs at the micro system level. Thus, improvement of safety culture needs to stress incremental changes to the day to day behaviors of the providers. Whereas the practical strategies for improving safety culture may appear simple, their implementation is not easy. To maintain the pace with the international standards, the care providers must look into ways through which they can utilize modern ways to overcome challenges that institutions face regarding safety culture. 

Reference 

Ammouri, A. A., Tailakh, A. K., Muliira, J. K., Geethakrishnan, R., & Al Kindi, S. N. (2015). Patient safety culture among nurses.  International nursing review ,  62 (1), 102-110.