Leading Practices from Departments with High Patient Safety Culture Psychological Safety Scores
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Asset Caption
Speaker: Katherine Alford, Ph.D., RN, CPHQ, CPPS
Tool:
Veterans Health Administration (VHA) All Employee Survey (AES) Patient Safety Culture (PSC) Psychological Safety/Moral Courage Dimension Scores, Secondary analysis of departments with high scores, and Qualitative Conventional Content Analysis of Department Chiefs/Supervisors narratives from high scoring departments.
Problem:
What are the leading practices of managers and teams in the departments who received high scores from the 2020 and 2021 Patient Safety Culture Survey - Psychological Safety/Moral Courage Dimension? High scores were defined as scores 3.5 and above, reference of 1.0 (Strongly Disagree) to 5.0 Strongly Agree Likert Scale.
Tool Selection:
Methodology: Narratives. Qualitative, Conventional Content Analysis of responses to this question - """"What practices (if any) did you initiate/engage in to promote psychological safety in your workplace? Review of the narrative responses allowed for a deeper dive and understanding of the characteristics of leaders and teams in higher scoring departments/units.
Usage:
Shared practices from high scoring departments with lower scoring departments by direct feedback/email and invite to the patient safety champions monthly meeting for review and discussion. Results shared with facility senior leaders/executives during the Director's morning huddle meeting and unit-based leadership. Patient Safety facilitated discussions for identified opportunities for improvement.
Results:
There were no significant differences for overall facility Scores from 2020 (M=3.46, SD=0.80) compared to 2021 (M=3.41, SD=0.80) for the Psychological Safety/Moral Courage PSC Dimension. However, departments who scored higher increased by 35% compared to the previous year. Leadership commitment was critical. The facility Medical Center Director championed this activity.