Leadership has an important role in promoting a culture of safety and enabling necessary changes to enhance patient safety. This article summarizes the design, pilot testing, and refinement of the Collective Leadership for Safety Culture (Co-Lead) program, which offers a systematic approach to developing collective leadership behaviors to promote effective teamwork and enhance safety culture.

Prior studies have demonstrated that rude behavior undermines patient safety. This study used a smartphone application to collect reports of rudeness directed toward nurses. These data were analyzed in conjunction with the hospital's hand hygiene and medication protocol compliance data as well as adverse event reports to determine if rudeness affected these safety outcomes. Participants also reported whether rudeness incidents influenced their cognition or their teamwork. Although rudeness was associated with worse self-reported cognition and teamwork, investigators did not observe differences in reported adverse events or changes in hand hygiene or medication protocol adherence related to rudeness exposure. A past PSNet perspective discussed how organizations are seeking to rehabilitate persistently disruptive clinicians.

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.

Antimicrobial stewardship has been highlighted as a strategy to improve antibiotic use in order to reduce hospital-acquired infections. This commentary discusses antimicrobial stewardship teams, their impact in the surgical setting, and the role of nurses in ensuring appropriate use of antibiotics.

In this cluster randomized trial, a strategy that sought to improve nurses' hand hygiene by emphasizing team commitment and leadership engagement did achieve higher hand hygiene rates compared with a standard quality improvement approach. However, the overall rate of hand hygiene adherence remained poor in both groups.

This study found that nurses supported the use of simulation-based training to foster improved communication and teamwork.

Situational awareness refers to the degree to which perception matches reality. This study assessed situational awareness of intensive care unit teams through direct observation of team rounds and assessment of the degree to which team members were able to anticipate clinical deterioration.

This study found that organizations that prioritized teamwork—specifically by using morning huddles among nurses—reported higher rates of hand hygiene. Although system factors may play a role in suboptimal hand hygiene, some observers have argued for greater emphasis on individual responsibility in this area.

Bedside nurses reported strongly positive experiences in dealing with nurse-led rapid response teams (RRTs). The RRT nurses not only aided in patient care, but also played a significant role in educating bedside nurses.

Few studies have addressed patient safety issues during inter-hospital patient transport. This Swedish study used critical incident debriefing techniques to explore factors leading to potential safety problems during transport, based on the perceptions of experienced transport nurses.

This qualitative study found that nurses relied on their clinical judgment, rather than formal track and trigger systems, to determine when a patient required urgent assistance.

The investigator analyzed staff perceptions and found that hospital culture and team design affect patient safety and cost.