Creating A Positive Culture

Recently a study was performed which determined six individual factors that lead to human errors. Three factors were contributed to the caregiver, 1) fatigue, 2) emotional stress and 3) multitasking. If you think about situations in your work place, when you are tired or when you are stressed, or you’re trying to do too many things at once it can lead to error. There were three factors attributed to the responsibility of the hospital, 1) noisy environment, 2) skeleton crews, 3) culture.

When the hospital has a culture of hiding or ignoring errors, it is understandable that people would want to strive for perfection and be in denial about errors, and cover it up. It would be better to strive for excellence rather than perfection, because there is no perfection. As nurses we can help create the culture of our hospital. When mistakes are made, we shouldn’t hide or blame them, we should take responsibility and learn from our mistakes to prevent reoccurrence. As nursing is becoming more high tech rather than high touch, it is vital that every team member provides efficient care and shares ways to improve the system.

The patient should also not be left out. Asking patients for suggestions and incorporating them into the decision-making will also help reduce errors as well. As nurses in the main work force of the hospital, we are change agents and should speak our mind to make changes that will improve quality of care.