Premium
The dilemma of patient safety work: Perceptions of hospital middle managers
Author(s) -
Sanner Margareta,
Halford Christina,
Vengberg Sofie,
Röing Marta
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of healthcare risk management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.221
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 2040-0861
pISSN - 1074-4797
DOI - 10.1002/jhrm.21325
Subject(s) - patient safety , dilemma , work (physics) , perception , task (project management) , health care , near miss , code (set theory) , nursing , psychology , medicine , medical emergency , computer science , political science , engineering , forensic engineering , mechanical engineering , philosophy , systems engineering , epistemology , neuroscience , law , set (abstract data type) , programming language
Patient safety continues to be a challenge for health care. Medical errors are not decreasing but continue to show roughly the same patterns in Sweden and other Western countries. This interview study aims to explore how 27 hospital middle managers responsible for patient safety work in a Swedish university hospital perceive this task. A qualitative analysis was performed. A code template was created, and each code was explored in depth and summarized into six categories. We conclude that patient safety work appears to have low priority; hospital top management does not seem to have any real interest in patient safety; incidents are underreported; and the organization of patient safety work seems to be insufficient and carried out insofar as resources are available. These parameters may explain why medical errors remain on a certain level and do not seem to decrease in spite of various support programs.