The Culture of Patient Safety and its Linkage to Medical error reporting

Abstract

Patient safety culture (PSC) has become a key concept in healthcare quality improvement that summarizes collective organizational values, beliefs, and norms underpinning the preference of safety over blame. PSC also affects the perception of risk, the discussion of worries and reactions to mistakes, among healthcare professionals. A growing body of literature suggests that PSC is an important indicator of the quality and quantity of medical errors reporting in diverse clinical settings. Underreporting of errors is still widespread despite the general knowledge regarding it, especially in low- and middle-income countries since hierarchical norms, available resources, and fear of harsh penalties tend to suppress free speech (Chegini et al., 2020). The study presented, helps to analyze the interrelation between PSC and medical error reporting, under condition of which leadership, communication, organizational learning, and systemic conditions determine the reporting behavior. It both synthesizes empirical evidence and questions the processes by which a healthy PSC can help identify and report on errors and reduce negative health outcomes in patients. Finally, the paper will argue that procedural changes are not enough to fix medical error reporting, but it requires a more radical cultural change based on systems thinking and the principles of organizational learning.