Leadership across all levels of a health system plays an important role in patient safety. In this study, researchers administered the Safety, Communication, Operational, Reliability, and Engagement (SCORE) survey to 31 Midwestern hospitals to evaluate how leadership behaviors influenced burnout, safety culture, and engagement. Findings indicate that local leadership behaviors are strongly associated with healthcare worker burnout, safety climate, teamwork climate, workload, and intentions to leave the job.

The COVID-19 pandemic increased symptoms of physician burnout, including emotional exhaustion, which can increase patient safety risks. This cross-sectional study examined emotional exhaustion among healthcare workers at two large health care systems in the United States before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Respondents reported increases in emotional exhaustion in themselves and perceived exhaustion experienced by their colleagues. The researchers found that emotional exhaustion was often clustered in work settings, highlighting the importance of organizational climate and safety culture in mitigating the effects of COVID-19 on healthcare worker well-being.

Psychological safety (PS) is integral to ensuring healthcare workers feel comfortable asking questions and raising patient safety concerns. A novel PS assessment was administered to over 10,000 healthcare workers and support staff in one academic health system. The scale showed a significant correlation with safety culture, especially among those exposed to institutional PS programs (i.e., Safety WalkRounds and Positive Leadership WalkRounds).

Teamwork is an essential component of patient safety.  This cross-sectional study of 50,000 healthcare workers in four large US health systems found that the teamwork climate worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey findings indicate that healthcare facilities with worsening teamwork climate had corresponding decreases in other measured domains, including safety climate and healthcare worker well-being. The researchers suggest that healthcare organizations should proactively increase team-based training to reduce patient harm.

A key aspect of patient safety culture is the perception that all team members should speak up about safety concerns. In this study of 165 frontline and senior leader participants, deciding to report a safety event (referred to as a “voiceable concern”) is influenced by four factors: certainty that something is wrong and is an occasion for voice; system versus conduct concerns, forgivability, and normalization. Organizational culture and context effect whether an incident is considered a voiceable concern.

… climate nine-months after implementation.   … Klimmeck S, Sexton BJ, Schwendimann R. Changes in safety and teamwork …

Massive online open courses (MOOCs) have the ability to reach a broad audience of learners. The Science of Safety in Healthcare MOOC was delivered in 2013 and 2014. At completion of the course, participants reported increased confidence on all six measured domains (teamwork, communication, managing risk, human environment, recognizing and responding, and culture). At 6 months post-completion, the majority agreed the content was useful and positively influenced their clinical practice, demonstrating that MOOCs are an effective interprofessional learning format.

… and support speaking up behaviors. … Wu F, Dixon-Woods M, Aveling EL, et al. The role of the informal and formal organisation in voice about concerns in healthcare: a qualitative interview study. Soc Sci Med. 2021;280:114050. …

Health system leadership practices can influence patient safety. Using a cross-sectional survey of clinical and non-clinical healthcare workers, this study found that Positive Leadership WalkRounds – where leadership conduct rounds and ask staff about what is going well and what can be improved – was associated with improved safety culture and healthcare worker well-being. Healthcare workers exposed to Postive Leadership WalkRounds were more likely to report readiness to engage in quality improvement activities, positive perceptions of teamwork and work-life balance norms and were less likely to report emotional exhaustion in themselves and their colleagues. 

High levels of healthcare worker (HCW) burnout may be associated with lower levels of patient safety and quality. In June 2020, three months into the COVID-19 pandemic, 288 maternity and neonatal HCWs were asked about their perspectives on well-being and patient safety. Two-thirds of respondents reported symptoms of burnout and only one-third reported adequate organizational support to meet these challenges. Organizations are encouraged to implement programs to reduce burnout and support HCW well-being.

… that perceived institutional support was associated with a better safety culture and lower emotional exhaustion, … highlighting the importance of support programs . … Sexton JB, Adair KC, Profit J, et al. Perceptions of institutional support for “second victims” …

This study used a brief survey to evaluate disruptive behaviors in one large health system, and its relationship to safety culture. Disruptive behaviors (most commonly bullying and inappropriate discontinuation of communication, such as hanging up the phone) were noted by more than half of individuals surveyed and occurred in nearly all work settings. Greater exposure to disruptive behaviors was associated with poorer teamwork climate, safety climate, and job satisfaction

Prior research has found that perceptions about safety climate varies across neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). This large cross-sectional study examining the impact of caregiver perceptions of safety climate on clinical outcomes found that stronger safety climates were associated with lower risk of healthcare-associated infections, but climate did not affect mortality rates.

Medical errors are a concern across the economic spectrum worldwide. This commentary describes an educational effort to develop champions to lead patient safety, quality improvement, and infection control initiatives in health systems in low- and middle-income countries. The authors highlight the importance of contextualizing training to consider local needs and resources.

Disruptive and unprofessional behaviors are known threats to safety culture and contribute to burnout among health professionals. In response to an episode of serious misconduct by a clinician, an academic hospital implemented a structured effort to address disruptive behavior by developing mechanisms for frontline staff to voice their concerns. This article reports on the development and implementation of the effort, which focused on addressing longstanding aspects of institutional culture that were perceived as tolerating—and providing tacit endorsement of—prominent leaders who engaged in disruptive behavior.

Prior research has shown that health care worker perceptions of safety culture may vary across different neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Less is known as to how perceptions of NICU safety culture relate to NICU quality of care. In this cross-sectional study involving 44 NICUs, researchers found a significant relationship between safety climate and teamwork ratings and a lack of health care–associated infections, but no relationship with regard to the other performance metrics examined in the study.

This study aimed to validate a behavioral marker as a measure of teamwork, specifically in the intensive care unit setting. Researchers found that it was difficult to establish interrater reliability for teamwork when observing behaviors and conclude that assessment of teamwork remains complex in the context of patient safety research.

… Qual Patient Saf … Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf … Following a sentinel wrong-patient event , a multidisciplinary quality … via the electronic health record. … Hensley NB, Koch CG, Pronovost PJ, et al. Wrong-Patient Blood Transfusion Error: Leveraging …

… BMJ Qual Saf … BMJ Qual Saf … Burnout is a highly prevalent patient safety issue. This survey study … work–life balance and burnout. Researchers validated a novel survey measure for work–life balance by asking … health care settings. … Schwartz SP, Adair KC, Bae J, et al. Work-life balance behaviours cluster in work settings and …