...A culture of safety includes the organization’s activities, standards, approaches, communication methods, and leadership attitudes to prevent or minimize adverse events, and to support safety behaviors at all levels. “Improving the culture of safety within health care is an essential component of preventing or reducing errors and improving overall health care quality” (“Safety Culture,” 2016). A culture of safety would benefit Drew’s case and the patient’s at his hospital, because a culture of safety promotes the staff’s commitment, confidence, increase the staff’s morale, and consistently safe behaviors among leaders and healthcare providers. In addition, a culture of safety would improve the communication and collaboration between co-workers,...
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...Health and Safety Developing a positive Health and Safety Culture Written by Dave Atkinson Contents Page: Section Title Page: 1 Contents Page Page: 2 1: Executive Summary Page: 3 2: Introduction 2a: Business organisation Page: 9 3: Assessment of existing culture 3a: Report of Indicators 3b: Report of methodology and conduct of survey 3c: Report of findings with interpretation 3d: Conclusion Page: 35 4: Strategy for Improving the Health and Safety Culture 4a: Aims and objectives 4b: Priorities for action 4c: Resources and constraints 4d: Implementation plan 4e: Methodology for monitoring success Page: 61 5: Business Case 5a: Requirements for resources 5b: Cost benefit analysis 5c: Reference to legislation 5d: Case Page: 72 6: Bibliography Page: 73 7: Appendices Section 1 Executive Summary Following an assessment of the current Health and Safety culture and climate within the business, areas of weakness have been identified that are holding back the progression towards the ultimate aim and objective in Health and Safety – Employee participation creating “Total Ownership". The assessment of the Health and Safety Culture covered such areas as an analysis of the 2009 employee Health and Safety questionnaire, a review of audits carried out, a check on the progress against 2009 objectives and targets and the underlying indicators of our Health and Safety management status...
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...Why be concerned about culture when it comes to safety? The answer: corporate culture influences all the important things that go on in a company. It determines how employees, suppliers, and customers are treated and work together; how well production or services are performed; how distribution is handled and how employee safety is addressed. What causes employee accidents? The most frequent answer is "carelessness of the employees." This is not surprising as committee of industrial safety, stated in the 1990's "The unsafe acts of persons are responsible for the majority of accidents". Even today knowing the important role culture plays on reducing accidents most managers still firmly believe "unsafe actions" or "at risk behaviors" are responsible for most employee accidents. The idea seems to be embedded in their DNA. In other words it is part of their culture. There are four essential elements for effective team management: The culture of the organization must lead, support and protect teams. People, managers and workers, must have or acquire the interpersonal and rational skills required to work effectively on a team. People must be given the opportunity to practice team skills before working on an actual team managed project and continually thereafter. It will take time and patience to develop and hone these skills. As teams progress they must be given the appropriate level of authority to implement ideas and recommendations without management oversight...
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...The Occupational Safety and Health Act provides specific regulations for employers to ensure employees Safety and health, a survey of 117 employees evaluated employee perceptions of workplace safety. Analyses found that employers are not fully committed to providing sufficient safety cultures for their employees. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) from the U.S. Department of Labor in 2008 A total of 1.6 million injuries and illnesses in private industry required healing away from work; and that employee absenteeism cause a reduction in man-hours which leads to less profit that affect the financial health of the company, and can be readily avoided by having a culture of safety. The business ethics of any organization will be a reflection of all actions by people within that organization although the attitudes and perceptions of employees’ about the ethical behavior of an organization are dependent on the decisions made and actions taken by the organization’s management (O’Toole, 2002). Studies have found that ethical businesses will normally have a social conscience and it would be concerned with the health, safety, and well-being of its employees. (Warren and Tweedale, 2002). Also the organizational culture has a major influence on decisions made by both managers and employees (Dettman, 2007). Safety culture is an organization’s norms, beliefs, roles, attitudes, and practices concerned with minimizing employees exposure to workplace hazards. Studies have found that...
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...NASA’s built a habit of relaxing safety standards to meet financial and time constraints. The agency’s “broken safety culture” would lead to tragedy again unless fundamental changes are made. NASA has made a critical mistake in its culture the space agency’s attitude toward safety hasn’t changed much since the 1986 Challenger disaster, which also killed seven along with the Columbian disaster. NASA lacks “effective checks back to the basics of understanding their operation and does not have an independent safety program and has not demonstrated the characteristics of a learning organization, NASA fell into the habit of accepting as normal some flaws in the shuttle system and tended to ignore or not recognize that these problems could foreshadow...
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...Safety culture is defined as “the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisation’s health and safety management. Organisations with a positive safety culture are characterized; by communications founded on mutual trust and by shared perceptions of the importance of safety and by confidence in the efficacy of preventive measures” [13]. Consistent with this definition, high reliability organizations, where the concept of safety culture first emerged, have some common attributes: a firm commitment to continuous quality improvement, learning from errors, and the ability to adapt to change positively [14], a fact that further substantiates the critical role of the organizational culture in reducing the rate of adverse events, and building safer systems. A study by Sara Singer et al associates better safety climate overall, and the existence of a non-punitive environment, with a lower relative incidence of selected patient safety indicators [15], while another study links lower safety climate and higher readmission rates [16]. Considering the high cost of medical errors in terms of human lives and loss of trust in health care systems, patient safety has become a major area for improvement in health care organizations to mitigate or reduce the incidence...
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...November 1999 I N S T I T U TE OF M E D I C I N E Shaping the Future for Health TO ERR IS HUMAN: BUILDING A SAFER HEALTH SYSTEM H ealth care in the United States is not as safe as it should be--and can be. At least 44,000 people, and perhaps as many as 98,000 people, die in hospitals each year as a result of medical errors that could have been prevented, according to estimates from two major studies. Even using the lower estimate, preventable medical errors in hospitals exceed attributable deaths to such feared threats as motor-vehicle wrecks, breast cancer, and AIDS. Medical errors can be defined as the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended or the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim. Among the problems that commonly occur during the course of providing health care are adverse drug events and improper transfusions, surgical injuries and wrong-site surgery, suicides, restraint-related injuries or death, falls, burns, pressure ulcers, and mistaken patient identities. High error rates with serious consequences are most likely to occur in intensive care units, operating rooms, and emergency departments. Beyond their cost in human lives, preventable medical errors exact other significant tolls. They have been estimated to result in total costs (in cluding the expense of additional care necessitated by the errors, lost income and household productivity, and disability) of between $17 billion and $29 billion per year in hospitals nationwide. Errors...
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...Nursing Contributions in the Promotion of Safety Western Governor’s University Interdisciplinary teams are formed in most hospital settings. The individuals involved in the total care of a patient come together to discuss, plan, and implement patient care or care based improvements in protocol. Discussions on proposed topics reviewed by the team present an opportunity to weigh out all options and develop the best way to resolve issues with which they are faced. These teams give nurses the opportunity to be actively involved in determining the path of care of their patients. When a nurse serves on the team, they can exhibit leadership qualities without serving in the capacity of an official role. Often the role of the nurse is overlooked by other members of the team. The role of the nurse is to serve as an advocate for their patient and to work in their best interest toward their full recovery and well-being. This can be fulfilled by displaying certain characteristics. Examples include embracing effective teamwork skills and communication and also promoting safety during planning. Effective teamwork and communication helps a nurse to display a sense of leadership and confidence in her own abilities and judgments. According to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, possessing these qualities will “help groups navigate competing priorities” (PS-103). Utilizing these qualities will allow groups to work in an environment of togetherness and success...
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...behavioural finance with a view to understanding the thought processes behind the decisions that were made. In the last decades there have been a lot of studies documenting the impact of psychological traits on the decisions made by managers. This report while touching on them, will not go into detail regarding the various technical difficulties encountered on the Deepwater Horizon and will instead focus on understanding the thought process of the various players involved. We will also briefly cover BP’s historical safety record as this will help us understand some of the behavioural factors in play within the organization. While BP was the principal on the Deepwater Horizon rig there were also other parties like Transocean , the rig operator, Halliburton, who operated in a consultancy position, Anadarko and Schlumberger. These companies played a part in the crisis and their performance and relationship to BP will be explored as well. BP’S ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE AND CULTURE BP under Lord Browne was a very silo based organization. Business units were under direct control of asset managers and they and their teams were incentivized by their assets performance. I worked at BP between 2007 and 2008 and it was very clear to me that the various assets were in direct...
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...According to QSEN the definition of safety is that it “Minimizes risk of harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performance.” (QSEN.org) What this is basically saying is that it is the both the responsibility of the hospital and medical staff to keep themselves and patients safe from harm, and it is best achieved when it is done individually and as a team, it takes everyone to be successful. During my observation at the MICU memorial I saw several techniques and strategies used to minimize the risk of harm to the patients. The nurse to patient ratio in the ICU unit helps to minimize harm by having only two patients to one nurse which allows the nurse to keep a constant eye on their patients. Also, the...
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...BP and the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: Individual Case Analysis of Organizational Culture Introduction There are many issues that can be observed and assessed in the case which has come to be known as the largest oil spill in History. BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill incident brought attention to the kind of culture that U.S. government officials, industry regulatory agencies, and all oil-drilling firms created and fostered. With an industry climate that cared more about production rather than safety and environmental protective efforts, it was easier for drilling companies to make a great deal of flawed decisions in their business practices. If efforts to change the industry culture and implement better standards of operations do not come into play, the likelihood of such a similar event could happen again. As we look in to BP’s earlier years and identify their decision making pattern that were established while adapting to endless changes in their external environments, we will be able to better assess what the organizational culture was like at BP. Looking at the industry as a whole, we can assess how the actions of political parties and regulatory agencies influenced and shaped the culture for many firms operating in that industry. BP was always trying to cut costs wherever possible, worked hard to meet demands, and continuously exploring deeper water drilling opportunities. This type of behavior allowed BP to be an industry leader. With new environmental issues arising...
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...Organizational Organizational Culture Analysis There is no single definition of organizational culture. One of many definitions states that organizational culture is a set of values and behaviors that contribute to a unique social and psychological environment of an organization (Schein, 2010). In the past 30 years, the interest in connection between organizational culture and organizational success has increased. The link between organizational culture and its success is far from certain. Each organization has a unique social structure that drives much of the individual behavior of its members. Organizational culture is difficult to observe, measure, or sketch. It can support and/or reinforce organizational structure, it could conflict with it, and it could be of an alternative to it. This paper will analyze organizational culture of Hospital. The author will attempt to identify and provide examples of the artifacts, values, and underlying assumptions of the Hospital culture. The data for this analysis was collected through direct observation, review of internal materials published by the Human Resources (HR) Department, and reports provided by external consultants and the State of Maryland. The observations are based on direct interactions with current employees of the Hospital. Employees observed represent executives, senior level management, clinical staff, and the bottom line. HR materials used for this analysis are published on the Hospital internal website that...
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...implemented appropriately across the Group. We are committed to providing a safe, healthy and inclusive workplace where our people can pursue challenging and exciting careers, and be rewarded for helping us deliver value. We build enduring relationships with our local communities that demonstrate mutual respect, active partnership, and long-term commitment, and aim to secure their broad-based support. The trust that is built on these solid relationships helps support our licence to operate. ——————————————————————————————————————————— Safety is not about numbers – it’s about people. The policies, standards and programmes we implement are important, but they alone will not deliver our safety vision. We are progressing on our journey toward a zero harm culture, where everyone knows that they make a difference and where all employees and contractors have the knowledge, competence and desire to work safely. Approach Our integrated safety approach combines a focus on injury...
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...6 Conclusion 6 References 6 Abstract Introduction In a manufacturing industry, Safety is one of the most critical factor. Research Objectives Literature Review At a time when many companies are emphasizing on improving their business processes, operational efficiency and enhancing pro people focus, safety is one of the most important areas of improvement. It becomes even more critical in a labor intensive industries like manufacturing and construction. Most of the industries have adopted a well set standard operating procedures and efforts are on to get it better day by day. The focus of our study has been to identify the factors which affects the safety awareness, minimizes accidents at workplace and as a result meets operational efficiency of the organization. When the effect of these factors are positive, we may conclude that the organization is people oriented. Previous Studies: One of the earlier studies in this area was conducted by Cox & Cox in the year 1991 for European industrial gas sector. It had considered five factors affecting the safety parameters – effectiveness of arrangements for safety, individual responsibility, individual skepticism, safeness of work environment and personal immunity. This study was done not keeping in mind any specific industry and later on further studies revealed that model and frameworks for employee attitudes to safety...
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...Reaction Summary: Workplace Safety at Alcoa In your opinion, what will be the key challenge to Alcoa's strategic effort to meet its goal of improved safety performance? Explain. There are many obstacles in front of Alcoa in its improvements of Safety. First of all, aluminum operations throughout the US had high injury rates. Alcoa has no peer models in the industry to follow. If Alcoa wants to improve its safety rates, it has to make extra efforts all by itself, despite the fact that peer companies are using different rules. Also, objections from line workers add a lot of pressure on implementing safety policies. However, different coworkers have distinct reasons to object. Some of the line workers are afraid of being laughed at by their coworkers when they follow new safety regulations. Workers don’t all understand the necessity of a new regulation at the beginning, so they feel easier to reject new rules. Some experienced workers refuse to follow new regulations because they are using their experience to judge all kinds of possibilities in work. They’ve never had accidents in the past, so it’s hard for them to adopt new regulations. Besides these two reasons, there are cultural norms and emotions. Workers may know it’s easier to get injured when they wear rings. However, cultures and emotions hold them back from safety concerns. Alcoa’s management also needs enhancement to meet with its safety expectations. Merton found workers have lax attitude within the...
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