Patient safety culture in care homes for older people: a scoping review

Abstract

BackgroundIn recent years, there has been an increasing focus on the role of safety culture in preventing incidents such as medication errors and falls. However, research and developments in safety culture has predominantly taken place in hospital settings, with relatively less attention given to establishing a safety culture in care homes. Despite safety culture being accepted as an important quality indicator across all health and social care settings, the understanding of culture within social care settings remains far less developed than within hospitals. It is therefore important that the existing evidence base is gathered and reviewed in order to understand safety culture in care homes.MethodsA scoping review was undertaken to describe the availability of evidence related to care homes’ patient safety culture, what these studies focused on, and identify any knowledge gaps within the existing literature. Included papers were each reviewed by two authors for eligibility and to draw out information relevant to the scoping review.ResultsTwenty-four empirical papers and one literature review were included within the scoping review. The collective evidence demonstrated that safety culture research is largely based in the USA, within Nursing Homes rather than Residential Home settings. Moreover, the scoping review revealed that empirical evidence has predominantly used quantitative measures, and therefore the deeper levels of culture have not been captured in the evidence base.ConclusionsSafety culture in care homes is a topic that has not been extensively researched. The review highlights a number of key gaps in the evidence base, which future research into safety culture in care home should attempt to address.

Predictors of Patient Safety Activities among Registered Nurses and Nurse Aides in Long-term Care Facilities

“…In this study, the level of patient safety activities increased with increasing perception of PSC for staff in LTC facilities. This is consistent with previous ndings that there is a signi cant correlation between the employee's perception of PSC and the outcomes of patient safety activities [4,26,27,35,51].…”

“…Therefore, as noted by other research, the measurement of PSC in LTC facilities helps improve quality of care and patient safety [35]. However, recent studies indicate a difference in the perception of PSC among staff in LTC facilities and nursing homes [29,52].…”

“…The main patient safety activities in LTC facilities include prevention of falls, pressure ulcers, infection, medication safety, inspection of equipment, re safety, and education for residents [32,33]. Previous studies have investigated employees' perceptions of PSC in nursing homes [4,5,[34][35][36][37], but research on the relationship between the perceptions of PSC and patient safety activities of nursing staff is inadequate. Particularly, no study has attempted to investigate the relationship between the perception of PSC and patient safety activities among RNs and NAs, who responsible for the care and safety of elderly nursing home residents, regarding legislation allowing NAs to function as RNs, irrespective of their quali cations.…”

Linking transformational leadership, patient safety culture and work engagement in home care services

“…The research on leadership in relation to patient safety in the home care context is scarce. Patient safety research in home care services is limited, as most of the literature on safety culture centres on hospitals and acute care settings (Gartshore, Waring, & Timmons, ) in addition to some recent studies from Norwegian nursing homes (Cappelen, Aase, Storm, Hetland, & Harris, ; Cappelen, Harris, & Aase, ). One study has explored perceptions of the patient safety culture in Norwegian home care services (Olsen & Bjerkan, ).…”

Forutsetninger for vellykket sosial innovasjon i sykehjem: ledernes perspektiv – en kvalitativ intervjustudie

“…Kulturelle endringer i sykehjem er et tema som er diskutert innenfor innovasjon i sykehjem (Gartshore, Waring & Timmons, 2017;Miller, Mor & Burgess, 2016;Nieboer & Strating, 2012;Sturdewant, Mueller & Buckwalter, 2018). Gartshore et al (2017) viser i en scoping review at det er utfordringer med å implementere trygghetskulturer i sykehjem, mens Sturdewant et al (2018) fant i en systematisk review at kulturendring i sykehjem er lite forsket på og resultatene sparsomme da det benyttes mange ulike metoder for å måle kulturendring i sykehjem. Nieboer & Strating (2012) utførte en større empirisk studie og fant store forskjeller i innovative kulturer i sykehjem.…”