AHRQ Patient Safety Network: Silence that can be dangerous: a vignette study to assess healthcare professionals' likelihood of speaking up about safety concerns.

AHRQ Patient Safety Network



Silence that can be dangerous: a vignette study to assess healthcare professionals' likelihood of speaking up about safety concerns.

Schwappach DLB, Gehring K. PLoS One. 2014;9:e104720.

This survey study presented physicians and nurses with four scenarios involving error and rule violations and found wide variation in their reported likelihood of voicing safety concerns. This emphasizes the need to bolster safety culture such that health care workers feel empowered to speak up to identify and mitigate errors.

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