Empirical Analyses of Patient Safety Culture and Its Indicators for Anesthesia

The publication of ？H？±To Err Is Human？H？H by the Institute of Medicine in 1999 brought about a series of patient safety movement that become the common concerns of healthcare providers, administrators and consumers. Similarly, two highly publicized medical adverse events in 2002 also stimulated the waves of patient safety activities. As vast amount of resources are devoted to developing administrative guidelines and educational programs in promoting patient safety, the issues of implementing these guidelines and their effectiveness become the center of concern. Literature has pointed out that the major obstacle to realizing patient safety guidelines is lack of such culture of practice in healthcare organizations, while using administrative data in monitoring the practice of patient safety is a cost-effective approach. The proposed research aims to establish patient safety indicators for anesthesia services and empirically evaluate the outcome of these indicators in different hospitals, as well as patient safety culture among hospital employees for such services. The results expect to unfold the gap between stated patient safety practices and the outcomes of practice, such that further improvement actions could be devised. The establishment of patient safety indicators for anesthesia services may help clinicians and quality management professionals detect potential patient safety problems and, if necessary, development system wide quality enhancement polices.

Project ID:PG9502-0653
External Project ID:DOH95-TD-M-113-021