Safety Culture Research: Ways to improve existing methods

University Of Texas Hlth Sci Ctr Houston, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Healthcare researchers have developed and provided evidence for the psychometric quality of several safety culture surveys in healthcare settings via reliability and validity indices during the past ten years. They have also provided evidence that culture surveys are sensitive to change when different types of interventions are implemented in healthcare settings and that culture is associated with outcomes. Despite these findings, substantial opportunities exist to enhance the safety culture field, including improving the psychometrics of the surveys, determining how surveys can be used to drive changes in culture, quality, and safety, and determining how culture fits into the broader quality/safety framework. Our one-day conference entitled Safety culture research: Ways to improve existing methods addresses these opportunities by bringing together experts from several countries to share their expertise concerning safety culture research. We plan to cover five distinct topics in this one-day conference: (1) Methods for assessing safety culture: A view from the outside facilitated by Dr. Ron Hays, (2) Review of safety culture dimensions and updates needed facilitated by Dr. Jason Etchegaray, (3) Using safety culture results to improve patient safety facilitated by Dr. Joann Sorra, (4) Putting safety culture into quality/safety framework: Where does it fit? facilitated by Dr. Kaveh Shojania, and (5) Safety culture: An international experience presented by Dr. Charles Vincent and facilitated by Dr. Eric Thomas. By facilitating this conference, we will be able to get the foremost experts in safety culture research to discuss the most pressing issues impacting this field. We will disseminate key themes and findings from the discussion via a conference summary submitted to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. This conference leverages the skills and interests of the applicant team - Dr. Jason Etchegaray (PI), Dr. Eric Thomas (Other Significant Contributor), and Dr. Joann Sorra (consultant). All three have spent considerable time researching safety culture, have an established record of publications in this area, and are interested in improving the quality of dat collected from safety culture surveys. All three have collaborated on the design of this research proposal and will continue working together to make this conference a success.