Impact of Patient Safety on Outcomes and Security Within Organizations: A Comprehensive Survey of Published Research on the Influence of Strong or Weak Patient Safety Cultures
In a rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, ensuring patient safety has become a critical challenge. A recent scoping review, published in 2021, aims to critically evaluate the implications of patient safety culture within healthcare organisations, particularly those with strong and weak safety cultures.
The review, conducted by unspecified researchers, employed a scoping methodology to generate comprehensive information about the impacts of safety culture on patient outcomes. The research was limited to studies assessing the effects of patient safety culture on patient outcomes, originally published in English language, and published between 2015 and 2021.
The findings suggest that a positive patient safety culture, characterised by open communication, continuous training, and direct involvement of nurses and other healthcare practitioners, can significantly reduce medical error incidents in all types of healthcare settings. Conversely, healthcare organisations with weak safety cultures may be associated with patient safety problems such as lack of standard procedures for medication storage, ineffective communication, and lack of patient involvement.
The review also highlights key strategies for implementing and improving patient safety culture in healthcare settings. These strategies include risk management and patient-centered care, transparency and accountability, fostering a non-punitive culture, effective leadership and governance, utilising technology and data analysis, and patient and staff engagement.
Moreover, the review emphasises the importance of clear policies, enhanced leadership capacity, collection of appropriate data, skilled and competent healthcare teams, and effective patient involvement in implementing patient safety programs. It also identifies key gaps in literature which can be addressed by future research.
The research also underscores the role of healthcare information technology as a key component of patient safety culture. Unsafe and care services of poor quality are significant contributors to injuries and deaths among large numbers of patients globally. Comprehensive understanding of the types, scopes, frequencies, and preventability of adverse events is crucial in formulating effective policies for reducing incidences of harm from medical care.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has launched activities focused on defining topics for research into patient safety in a global perspective to facilitate the identification of interventions for reducing incidences of harm and enhancing the quality of care offered. NHS England (2020) reports that patient safety is fundamental in the delivery of quality vital care services.
In conclusion, the scoping review provides valuable insights into the impact of patient safety culture on healthcare outcomes. It serves as a guideline for motivating future research about the patient safety culture and offers suggestions for both future research and how the newly developed knowledge can be used for enhancing patient safety practice.
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