Patient safety culture: Insights from a cross-sectional study among healthcare professionals.

Abstract

The classical definition of patient safety given by the IOM is, "the prevention of harm to patients." To expect error less performance from human beings working in a complex, highly challenging, and stressful health care environment is unrealistic. The emphasis must be on fostering a culture of safety that involves multiple stakeholders including healthcare workers, healthcare organizations, and patients. To assess the culture of patient safety among healthcare professionals. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using a pre-validated survey instrument in a tertiary care pediatric hospital. The data were collected over a period of 1 month (from 4^th January 2022 to 5^th February 2022) using pre-validated questionnaire based on "Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS™) Hospital Survey Version 2.0 (SOPS Hospital Survey 2.0)". Both web-based and paper-based questionnaire forms were distributed among the health care workers. Totally, 61% of the respondents had average positive response to patient safety, 75% positive response about communication of patient safety error and 74% about teamwork in crisis. A total of 74% responded that supervisors or clinical leaders support them in pursuit of patient safety, 73% about proper handovers. About 69% mentioned about a culture of organizational learning and continuous improvement, 59% reported any patient safety event, 49% believed in support from Hospital management and 42% believed that if a patient safety error is reported it is responded to positively by the seniors by taking corrective measures. The study presented with a plethora of outcomes that can be used for promoting safe healthcare. A policy for continuous improvement should be implemented to ensure the culture of safe and sustainable patient care.