Assessing Patient Safety Culture in an Emergency Department

SMUR Urgences, Centre Hospitalier Nord Deux Sevres, 79103 Thouars Cedex, France.

Corresponding Author: Philippe Leveau, SMUR Urgences, Centre Hospitalier Nord Deux Sevres, 79103 Thouars Cedex, France. Tel: 04 3275 3181; E-Mail: [email protected]

  Received Date: 30 May 2016   

  Accepted Date: 03 Sep 2016   

  Published Date: 15 Sep 2016

  Copyright © 2016 Leveau P

  Citation: Leveau P. (2016). Assessing Patient Safety Culture in an Emergency Department. Mathews J Emergency Med. 1(3): 015.

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The culture of safety has an impact on the quality of care. It was measured in an emergency department.
Method: The French translation of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture was used with all the medical and nonmedical staffs of the ED.
Results: The rate of participation was equal to 83 %. Only 50 % of the referees had a positive overall perception of patient safety. There was 60 % of positive answers for reporting events, 82% for supervisor expectations and actions promoting safety, 59 % for organizational learning continuous improvement, 86 % for teamwork in the department, 67 % for the communication openness, 49 % for the nonpunitive response to error, 39 % for the human resources, 32 % for the hospital management support for patient safety and 47 % for the teamwork across hospital units.
Discussion: These results are in accordance with the literature, except the clearly upper rate of participation. The dimensions of the culture of safety which overtake the perimeter of the emergency department have the worst scores, highlighting a strategic deficit of establishment. The positive points are the excellent scores for teamwork in the department and supervisor expectations and actions promoting safety. They are an asset for implementation of corrective measures.
Conclusion: These results allow us to set up targeted measures of improvement, in particular an anonymous system of reporting events and errors reversed forecast to a system of distribution between the actors.

KEYWORDS

Safety Management; Patient Safety; Safety Culture; Emergency Medicine; Emergency Department.