Assessment of patient safety culture in a rural tertiary health care hospital of Central India

Abstract

Background: A safety culture assessment provides an organization with a basic understanding of the safety related perceptions and attitudes of its managers and staff. While patient safety has been a major area of research in industrialized nations for over a decade, data on the root causes of unsafe care in low-income settings is sparse. The objective of the study was to assess the patient safety culture in a rural tertiary health care hospital situated in Central India.Methods: A survey conducted during year 2015, in a rural tertiary health care teaching hospital, Maharashtra (India). The study participants were the 156 hospital staff working in various clinical work areas. The agency for healthcare research and quality hospital survey on patient safety culture, a validated instrument is used as an assessment tool.Results: Total 144 participants included in the study, 75 (52%) were females and rest were males 48%. Out of these 111 (77), maximum number of staff (57.05%) was belonging to different intensive care units.  57% of participants had worked in the hospital for 1 to 5 years.  For the unit level safety culture dimension, the maximum composite score of positive responses was obtained for “Organizational learning- continuous improvement” (67%) followed by “Hospital management support for patient safety” (65%).  On the other hand only 48% survey participants gave an affirmative opinion with respect to “Feedback and communication about error”. For the hospital wide dimensions response rate was obtained as 62% for the “Teamwork across Hospital Units” while for the dimension “Hospital Handoffs & Transitions”, the score came out as 55%.Conclusions: The perception of patient safety and standards of patient safety were fairly good in the present rural tertiary health care hospital, but there is an ample of prospect in improvement with regard to event reporting, feedback and non punitive error.