Does employee safety matter for patients too? Employee safety climate and patient safety culture in health care.
Safety culture is an essential aspect of high reliability health care systems. In this study, researchers administered a survey exploring perceptions of employee safety and a second survey assessing safety culture. The authors found a consistent association between the safety climate for employees and the patient safety culture. While results on employee safety and patient safety surveys may reflect general positive sentiment about the workplace, this finding is in line with data demonstrating that working conditions for nurses and physicians affect patient safety. This suggests that all aspects of the work environment should be attended to in order to foster a culture of safety. Further study is required to determine how to reach and maintain a safety climate for patients and health care workers.