Resources

The Victorian Safety Culture Guide (VSCG), from Safer Care Victoria, supports healthcare leaders to measure and monitor their organisation’s safety culture;  and is also a useful tool for other sectors to adapt and apply to develop their safety cultures. 

‘Safety culture is like a garden: to bloom, it must be planned, planted and  tended.’ This is a key message from a systematic review of safety culture and an excellent reminder that culture is never ‘set and forget’.

Correct identification of patients has been recognised as a critical safety issue for many years. A recent report from the UK’s Health Services Safety Investigation Body (HSSIB), compiles evidence from various investigations and sources to explore the factors contributing to patient misidentification in healthcare. The report defines 'positive patient identification' as the accurate identification of a patient to ensure they receive the correct care. Whereas, 'patient misidentification' occurs when a patient is wrongly identified as someone else, leading to potential harm from incorrect or missed treatment.

We spend a lot of time on root cause analysis (RCA) – and have done it for 20 years or so. But key clinical risks remain stubbornly consistent.

We frequently discuss the importance of a ‘safety culture’ in human services – but what are the key ingredients? This scoping review synthesises evidence from multiple studies to identify key factors contributing to patient safety culture. Although the review focused on hospitals, the findings are relevant for all human service leaders seeking to build or strengthen their culture of safety.

Clinical Guidelines are developed to standardise practice and provide a solid evidence base for care. They are essential components of clinical governance to support safe and effective care and serve as valuable tools for training.  

As this study reveals, guidelines can also be a source of confusion and misapplication. Ambiguities in guidelines can result in varying interpretations among healthcare providers, contributing to inconsistent care and potential patient harm. 

The inter-dependency of clinician wellbeing and patient safety is well accepted. Staff burnout is a widespread problem and patient safety improvement appears to have stalled. This survey of 2187 physicians and 6643 nurses practising in 64 hospitals in six European countries investigated the well-being of physicians and nurses in hospital practice in Europe, and identified interventions that hold promise for reducing adverse clinician outcomes and improving patient safety.

What skills and experience do clinical governance or similar teams and units need to support your organisation's safety and quality agenda? In this webinar, Dr Sarah Fischer, Acting Executive Director of Safety at Safer Care Victoria, discussed the various roles and relationships to ensure fit-for-purpose teams.

In this webinar, Sarah Fischer, Director of Culture & Capability at Safer Care Victoria discussed the elements that make up a safety culture; the steps to safety culture maturation, the signs that indicate success and how culture is influenced at a local level.

What is a ‘culture of safety’ in the context of care quality? How does it help? Why is it important? While ‘safety culture’ trips off the tongue,  ‘culture’ is often nebulous in practice; and it can be unclear how to improve it or how the shift occurs.