Patient safety culture: finding meaning in patient experiences
International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance
ISSN: 0952-6862
Article publication date: 13 July 2015
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine what patient and family stories can tell us about patient safety culture within health care organizations and how patients experience patient safety culture.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 11 patient and family stories of adverse event experiences were examined in September 2013 using publicly available videos on the Canadian Patient Safety Insitute web site. Videos were transcribed verbatim and collated as one complete data set. Thematic analysis was used to perform qualitative inquiry. All qualitative analysis was done using NVivo 10 software.
Findings
A total of three themes were identified: first, Being Passed Around; second, Not Having the Conversation; and third, the Person Behind the Patient. Results from this research also suggest that while health care organizations and providers might expect patients to play a larger role in managing their health, there may be underlying reasons as to why patients are not doing so.
Practical implications
The findings indicate that patient experiences and narratives are useful sources of information to better understand organizational safety culture and patient experiences of safety while hospitalized. Greater inclusion and analysis of patient safety narratives is important in understanding the needs of patients and how patient safety culture interventions can be improved to ensure translation of patient safety strategies at the frontlines of care.
Originality/value
Greater acknowledgement of the patient and family experience provides organizations with an integral perspective to assist in defining and addressing deficiencies within their patient safety culture and to identify opportunities for improvement.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr Mark Fleming for his guidance throughout the research.
Conflicts of interests: the authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Citation
Bishop, A.C. and Cregan, B.R. (2015), "Patient safety culture: finding meaning in patient experiences", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 28 No. 6, pp. 595-610. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHCQA-03-2014-0029
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited