The Effect of Health Care Working Conditions on Patient Safety: Evidence Report/Technology Assessment Number 74 - Softcover

Human Services, U.S. Department Of Health And; And Quality, Agency For Healthcare Research

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1499380488 ISBN 13: 9781499380484

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

Do the working conditions of health care personnel contribute to the incidence of medical errors? This question is often raised during public discussion of ways to improve patient safety. How much do issues of nurse staffing and doctors' hours, for example, contribute to the estimated 44,000 to 98,000 deaths per year in hospitals due to medical errors? The objective of this report is to identify and summarize evidence from the scientific literature on the effects of health care working conditions on patient safety. The report also identifies relevant information from industries outside of heath care. Working conditions were classified into five categories: workforce staffing, workflow design, personal/social factors, physical environment, and organizational factors. The classification system for working conditions was derived from existing literature and advice from an expert panel. It is consistent with human factors research in multiple disciplines and industries such as aviation and nuclear power. Workforce staffing refers to job assignments and includes four principal aspects of job duties: the volume of work assigned to individuals, the professional skills required for particular job assignments, the duration of experience in a particular job category, and work schedules. Workflow design focuses on the job activities of health care workers, including interactions among workers and the nature and scope of the work as tasks are completed. Personal/social factors refer to individual and group factors such as stress, job satisfaction, and professionalism. Physical environment includes aspects of the health care workplace such as light, aesthetics, and sound. Organizational factors are structural and process aspects of the organization as a whole, such as use of teams, division of labor, and shared beliefs. The researchers developed an analytic framework to define how working conditions are related to patient safety. Antecedent conditions, which are external factors

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1499380488
• ISBN 13: 9781499380484
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 214