Culture in Healthcare Essay Discussion Paper
Just Culture in Healthcare
The year was 1999 and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) had just released a revolutionary report titled To Err Is Human. In this report, the IOM found that approximately 98,000 patients were dying preventable deaths in US hospitals every year due to preventable human errors (Palatnik, 2016). This report forced healthcare stakeholders to take a closer look at quality improvement and patient safety in healthcare. One of the recommendations that were given in the report was that innovative healthcare technologies could be introduced and used in healthcare to help prevent these errors (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2017). This post looks at the concept of just culture in the prevention of errors and the assurance of patient safety.
The Concept
Traditionally, healthcare has held that any errors committed and leading to the occurrence of incidents such as sentinel (never) events should be traced to the individual that was responsible for them. This is essentially a blame system and a punitive one at that. Many a times a nurse has been held responsible for a sentinel event caused by an error that is ostensibly theirs. What results is punishment and even redundancy. Culture in Healthcare Essay Discussion Paper However, a recent realization by the healthcare industry is that errors do not occur in a vacuum but rather due to a succession of events that are integral to the whole system. This is a truth that has been known for a long time in industries such as the aviation industry and is referred to as “just culture” (Linda & Nancy, 2019).
ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
In just culture, instead of blaming an individual for an error, the entire system is examined and the succession of events leading to the unfortunate event is identified. Corrective measures are then taken system-wide in order to prevent a reoccurrence of such an event. Just culture in healthcare is facilitated by transformational leadership (Asiri et al., 2016) and creating a working environment devoid of victimization and full of psychological safety. In such an environment, healthcare employees are not afraid to report errors.
References
Asiri, S.A., Rohrer, W.W., Al-Surimi, K., Da’ar, O.O., & Ahmed, A. (2016). The association of leadership styles and empowerment with nurses’ organizational commitment in an acute health care setting: A cross-sectional study. BMC Nursing, 15(38), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-016-0161-7
Linda, P., & Nancy, S. (2019). Just culture: It’s more than policy. Nursing Management (Springhouse), 50(6), 38-45. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NUMA.0000558482.07815.ae
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K.G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge, 4th ed. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Palatnik, A. (2016). To err is human. Nursing Critical Care, 11(5), 4. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.CCN.0000490961.44977.8d
Culture in Healthcare Essay Discussion Paper
