Reducing Hospital Errors: Interventions that Build Safety Culture

Posted: 19 Jun 2013

See all articles by Sara J. Singer

Sara J. Singer

Harvard School of Public Health

Timothy J. Vogus

Vanderbilt University - Organizational Behavior

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Abstract

Hospital errors are a seemingly intractable problem and continuing threat to public health. Errors resist intervention because too often the interventions deployed fail to address the fundamental source of errors: weak organizational safety culture. This review applies and extends a theoretical model of safety culture that suggests it is a function of interrelated processes of enabling, enacting, and elaborating that can reduce hospital errors over time. In this model, enabling activities help shape perceptions of safety climate, which promotes enactment of safety culture. We then classify a broad array of interventions as enabling, enacting, or elaborating a culture of safety. Our analysis, which is intended to guide future attempts to both study and more effectively create and sustain a safety culture, emphasizes that isolated interventions are unlikely to reduce the underlying causes of hospital errors. Instead, reducing errors requires systemic interventions that address the interrelated processes of safety culture in a balanced manner.

Suggested Citation

Singer, Sara J. and Vogus, Timothy J., Reducing Hospital Errors: Interventions that Build Safety Culture. Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management Research Paper No. 2231534, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2231534

Sara J. Singer

Harvard School of Public Health ( email )

677 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA MA 02115
United States

Timothy J. Vogus (Contact Author)

Vanderbilt University - Organizational Behavior ( email )

Nashville, TN 37203
United States

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