Health Care Organization Culture
The culture of an organization can be simply put to be the way of life in an organization. It can also be seen as the shared value system derived overtime that guides members in their relationship, external environment, and solve problems in other to succeed.
Health care organization (HCO) culture can greatly influence the ability to manage human resources, serve patients and ultimately has a strong impact on its economic performance (Kotter & Heskett, 1992). Constructive organizational cultures that enhance both employee satisfaction and patient satisfaction consist of safe work environments where members have positive colleague interactions and approach tasks in a manner that helps attain high personal satisfaction
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Increasingly, healthcare organizations are becoming aware of the importance of transforming organizational culture in order to improve patient safety. According to IOM transformation to patient safety is challenging but pertinent and should be embrace by HCO’s.
Developing the right culture for HCO’s is key. This can help achieve the overall mission and goal of the HCO and make employees aware of what to do (Daft2013). The benefits can be categorized into social, health, and business.
The social benefits increase trust, promote inclusion of all employees, assists patients and families in their care and promotes patient and family responsibilities for health.
The health benefits, increase in preventive care, reduction in cost due to medical error and improve patients data collection
Business benefits include; Decrease in barriers that slow progress, Moves toward meeting legal and regulatory guidelines, Incorporates different perspectives, ideas and strategies into the decision-making process,
Improves efficiency of care services, Increases the market share of the
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Patient safety management is one of the tools that is used in HCO’s to shape the culture adopted by the HCO.
In November 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimated that from 44,000 to 98,000 people died each year as a result of medical errors, despite the fact that medical error is under reported and the financial damage that resulted from medical errors was estimated at US$17 billion to US$29 billion (Kohn, Corrigan & Donaldson, 2000). The implementation of Patient safety in HCO can be achieved when a thorough assess of the HCO is made which involve realizing that error occur and effort to learn and correct those errors are made in a non-punitive manner, but influencing behaviors of employees. Teamwork is also vital to ensure a culture of safety is imbibed in the HCO. This is based on effective communication and shared learning. Successful teamwork requires all employees to know their roles and understand how they are connected t other employees. Another key factor is patient involvement; this include family of patient involvement and patients feedback. Other safety measures HCO culture implement are systematic reporting, transparency, and
The healthcare setting should be a safe environment. By employing the four characteristics of a culture of safety an employer can maintain high employee satisfaction thereby improving retention. People are held responsible for their behavior in this culture but "a distinction is made between errors that result from poor decision making and those that result from system flaws." ("What are the," 2011) The four characteristics are psychological safety, active leadership, transparency and fairness.
As the Joint Commission aims to nationally improve health care systems through health care organizations collaborations, it publishes recommended patient safety goals. As stated by the Joint Commission, “the first obligation of health care is to “do no harm””. The Joint Commission’s 2015 National Patient Safety Goals for hospitals include : Identify patients correctly; Improve staff communication; Use
You are so correct, it is importance for us health professionals to share a common understanding of patient safety standards and practices and improve patient safety depends largely on the ways in which we; share and learn with other health professionals as well as students. We must improve the way we treat each other by using respect and compassion, and learn from one another and from patient safety events or any challenges that impact the ability for us as health professionals, to improve is to ensure better patient outcomes and patient experience in (Milstead 2015 [Power Point slide 6-10).
Memorial Hermann and Health System in Houston began striving towards becoming a high reliability organization 8 years ago. To make this happen, they made patient safety their systems core value throughout all of their hospitals. They accomplished this by hiring an outside company, who was known for their safety excellence, to train all of their staff members to become patient oriented. This process allowed them to develop a culture of safety in which they believed would lead them to become a high reliability organization. These processes completely eliminated mismatched blood transfusions and adverse events. They received many awards because their hospitals had superior performance in the prevention of hospital-acquired infections. The
Over the last several years, a wide variety of health care organizations have been facing a number of challenges. This is because of pressures associated with: rising costs, increasing demands and larger numbers of patients. For many facilities this has created a situation where patient safety issues are often overlooked. This is because the staff is facing tremendous amounts of pressure, long hours and more patients. The combination of these factors has created a situation where a variety of hospitals need to improve their patient safety procedures. In the case of Sharp Memorial Hospital, they are focused on addressing these issues through different strategies. To fully understand how they are able to achieve these objectives requires looking at: specific ways the organization has responded to the crisis in medical errors, their definition of patient safety, the causes of errors, systematic barriers and transformations that have been adopted. Together, these different elements will provide the greatest insights as to how the facility is coping with the crisis in patient safety.
healthcare organization accrediting bodies, and to maintain credibility with patients and peers alike, must adhere to the National Patient Safety Goals. As stated by Ulrich and Kear (2014), "Not only are nurses responsible for providing safe patient care, we are also responsible for creating an environment in which others can provide safe patient care, and for being the last line of defense when needed between the patient and potential harm. Having a deep understanding of patient safety and patient safety culture allows nurses to be the leaders we need to be in ensuring that our patients are always
The Joint Commission has set forth standards for health care organizations to reduce the number of risks and amend the quality of care and the safety of the patient. Risk management and quality management focus on these attributes of the organization and the patient. Risks are impossible to avoid since it linked to everyday living and the workforce. Risk management must take the initiative to distinguish and oversee these risks. Due to the lack of consistency in the quality of care, health care organizations aim to reduce the negative outcomes of the patient safety through quality management methods. Internal and external factors may pose a risk that can have an impact on the organization and the consequence of the patient care and safety.
The Healthcare field is becoming more aware of how important it is to change the way that organizational culture is becoming in order to help improve patient safety. Even though patient safety plays a very important part of our health care system which helps explain the importance quality of health care. However, when trying to keep patients safe, it can be a demanding challenge because of human errors and mistakes that are made. According to World Health Organization, patient safety is the absence of preventable harm to a patient while in the process of health care (who.int/patientsafety). Being in the position of a clinical content manager, the first step in reporting problems is to make sure that when reporting a problem, it need to be done at the earliest stage to show the importance to the company. The approach that I would take as a Clinical content manager is to identify the problem, have regular shift meetings to address any issues, flag any errors that occurred, have regular safety meeting, give feedback to staff on any errors that were found, try to figure out the best solution not only for the patients, but staff also, and although being a team leader, I would give the staff the opportunity to address any concerns that they may have.
Human error theory explores human factors and ergonomics, which contribute to the implementation and design of health and safety measures in healthcare. The theory identifies the effect of medical errors by healthcare providers cause significant risks to the health and safety of patients. It explains human errors in terms of contributory factors that prevail in a person's performance, immediate environment, and the broader organizational level. Human errors that influence performance are identified in broader categories of lapses, mistakes, or slips. To mitigate this, the research identifies the establishment of safety and health standards in organizational culture and structure to change individual behavior and organizational behavior.
There are two common ways to handle a medical error. One is by blaming the individual or things when the error occurs, called it the “culture of blame”. The other one is by focusing on the safety goal using effective systems and teamwork, called “culture of safety". We may say that one is more applicable than the other, or maybe one is more beneficial than the other. In real life though, only one can be applied in a healthcare system, the one that is proven effective regardless its origin, pragmatic, or .
By treating all workers fairly and encouraging a safe environment thru utilizing the mistakes made as learning concepts, the worker’s morale will improve and the work they provide will be of abundance (Geffken-Eddy, 2011). It is also essential to maintain services provided by healthcare providers abundant because if a company was to lose more providers, the existing workers will have to work more and harder to keep up with the demands from the consumers (patients). Patient safety may be affected by the increased workloads a healthcare provider accrues, hindering the effects of a Just Culture. By encouraging workers to engage in safer practices, not punishing them for mistakes, Just Culture will improve the overall work environment for workers; therefore, maintaining the services at an abundance.
Preventing such hospital acquired conditions can save millions of dollars for the hospitals by sidelining unnecessary expenses for the acquired conditions. Frontline nurses can handle and prevent the occurrence of never events by incorporating a culture of safety through best nursing practices. The safety culture includes the ways in which the organization handles and reacts to issues or mistakes concerned with the safety in the organization, and also the notion the members of the organization have towards the safety. A high safety culture is crucial for preventing those errors from happening. Their occurrence can be prevented by expecting the risk in advance and embracing the evidence based practice. To minimize these errors Institute of Medicine (IOM) ordered the healthcare insurers including medicare and even the private insurance companies to provide higher incentives for the hospital acquired condition irrespective of the financial barriers and considerations. In order to motivate towards better care, IOM exhorted the insurers to encourage the hospitals following evidence based prevention strategies through rewards and provide advantageous rate adjustments for hospitals which provide quality care, and also allowing the admission of high risk patients with
In an effort to provide high-quality health care while avoiding a Culture of Blame in the work environment, health care organizations are planning and implementing new ways of facilitating accountability and constant improvement. Understanding the importance of accountability for excellent health care, experts and organizations are planning and implementing a Just Culture. Just Culture understands that "to err is human," involves an organization's entire hierarchy and encourages every member to constantly improve health care through team effort.
The risk management program in any business, especially in a health care organization is an integral part of its day to day operation. The purpose of the risk management department is summed up by Kavaler & Alexander (2014), “…a program designed to reduce the incidence of preventable accidents and injuries to minimize the financial loss to the institution should any accident or injury occur” (p. 5). Protecting employees, patients, vendors and visitors is an ongoing process and one that needs to be updated when the healthcare organization has deemed necessary. This paper will demonstrate the importance of presenting the risk management program to new employees, compliance with the standards set forth by the American Society of Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM), propose recommendations or changes needed to further improve the program, as well as examine the administrative process of managing a risk program.
To assure quality and to promote a culture of safety, health care organizations must address the problem of behaviors that threaten the performance of the health care team.