Promoting Culture of Safety in Healthcare

Healthcare organizations strive to create a culture of safety that improves healthcare
outcomes of patients. There are many methods that healthcare organizations can achieve this
goals. Two of these methods are benchmarking and fostering effective team-based healthcare.
Promoting culture of safety through benchmarking
Benchmarking is management approach that involves measuring outcomes and
comparing the measured outcomes against those of other organizations or other departments
within the same organization (Ettorchi-Tardy, Levif, & Michel, 2012). The goal of such
comparison is to learn how desirable outcomes were achieved and then use the lessons learnt to
make improvements so that the benchmarking department or organization can also achieve the
desirable outcomes. Benchmarking is, therefore, important in healthcare because it provides a
foundation upon which an organization can formulate an outcome improvement action plan.
Apart from improving quality of care and efficiency, benchmarking can also be used to promote
safety culture in a healthcare organization. Through benchmarking, healthcare organizations can
learn best practices that result in high levels of patient safety (Ettorchi-Tardy et al., 2012). By
implementing such best practices, a healthcare organization can potentially create a culture of
safety.
Promoting culture of safety through effective teams
It is now an accepted fact that a single healthcare practitioner such as a dentist or a
physician cannot effectively deliver high quality care to patients when working alone. For best
outcomes, it is important that healthcare practitioners collaborate with each other, their patients,

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and family members in the delivery of care (Gluyas, 2015). This team-based healthcare can also
result in high levels of patient safety if the teams are effective. Medical errors and other adverse
events have been associated with poor or inadequate communication among members of
healthcare teams (Gluyas, 2015). Effective healthcare teams are characterized by effective
communication among members of the team. Such communication significantly improves
patient safety outcomes.
Conclusion
It is possible for healthcare organizations to promote a culture of safety without spending
a lot of financial resources. Benchmarking is one of the effective ways that healthcare
organizations use to improve safety outcomes at little cost. Another method is creation of teams
with excellent communication among team members.

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References

Ettorchi-Tardy, A., Levif, M., & Michel, P. (2012). Benchmarking: a method for continuous
quality improvement in health. Healthcare policy, 7(4), e101.
Gluyas, H. (2015). Effective communication and teamwork promotes patient safety. Nursing
Standard, 29(49), 50.