Providing feedback following Leadership WalkRounds is associated with better patient safety culture, higher employee engagement and lower burnout.
Achieving an optimal culture of safety is a central component of patient safety. Prior research supports that higher levels of employee engagement are correlated with improved perceptions of safety culture and that higher rates of burnout are associated with more negative perceptions of safety culture. Leadership WalkRounds has been touted as an intervention to improve safety culture, although the evidence for its efficacy has been mixed. In a more recent study, clinical units that received feedback from walkrounds had lower rates of burnout and more positive perceptions of safety culture. In this cross-sectional survey study, researchers analyzed the relationship between receiving feedback on the actions resulting from walkrounds and health care employees' perceptions of safety culture, engagement, burnout, and work–life balance across 829 settings. Work environments in which walkrounds were conducted with feedback had higher safety culture and employee engagement scores. A past PSNet interview and Annual Perspective discussed the relationship between burnout and patient safety.