What is Patient Safety Culture? A Review of the Literature. Christine E. Sammer. 2010; Journal of Nursing Scholarship - Wiley InterScience

CLINICAL SCHOLARSHIP
What is Patient Safety Culture? A Review of the Literature
Christine E. Sammer, RN, PhD 1 , Kristine Lykens, PhD 2 , Karan P. Singh, PhD 3 , Douglas A. Mains, DrPH 4 , & Nuha A. Lackan, PhD 5

1 Rho Iota, Director, Clinical Care Transformation, Office of Clinical Effectiveness, Adventist Health System, Lake Mary, FL 2 Assistant Professor, Health Management and Policy, School of Public Health, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX 3 Professor and Chair, Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX 4 Associate Professor, Health Management and Policy, School of Public Health, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX 5 Assistant Professor, Health Management and Policy, School of Public Health, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX

Correspondence
Christine E. Sammer, Office of Clinical Effectiveness, Adventist Health System, 1035 Greenwood Blvd. Ste. #205, Lake Mary, FL 32746. E-mail: christine.sammer@ahss.org
Copyright © 2010 Sigma Theta Tau International

KEYWORDS
Hospital safety culture framework • patient safety

ABSTRACT
Purpose: To organize the properties of safety culture addressed by many studies and to develop a conceptual culture of safety model.

Design and Methods: A comprehensive review of the culture of safety literature within the U.S. hospital setting. The review was a qualitative meta-analysis from which we generated a conceptual culture of safety framework and developed a typology of the safety culture literature.

Findings: Seven subcultures of patient safety culture were identified: (a) leadership, (b) teamwork, (c) evidence-based, (d) communication, (e) learning, (f) just, and (g) patient-centered.

Conclusions: Safety culture is a complex phenomenon that is not clearly understood by hospital leaders, thus making it difficult to operationalize. We found senior leadership accountability key to an organization-wide culture of safety.

Clinical Relevance: Hospital leaders are increasingly pressured by federal, state, regulatory, and consumer groups to demonstrate an organizational safety culture that assures patients are safe from medical error. This article defines a safety culture framework that may support hospital leadership answer the question "what is a patient safety culture?"


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Accepted: November 14, 2009

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI)
10.1111/j.1547-5069.2009.01330.x About DOI
What is Patient Safety Culture? A Review of the Literature. Christine E. Sammer. 2010; Journal of Nursing Scholarship - Wiley InterScience