Safety and performance in healthcare are benchmarks for effective and efficient delivery of care. Systems thinking adoption is the relationship between systems and the interaction of processes between healthcare professionals and their environment. Quality improvement in patient safety with consideration of the action & reactions within systems thinking should be an interdisciplinary discussion.
The local application needs to be a parallel example denoting different implications and recommending a change in organisational policy and strategy. Systems thinking should be considered within the capacity for change, within systems rather than individuals in understanding that safety cultures should be a catalyst in resident safety considerations.
Safety and Management systems
The combination of management systems, safety cultures, and leadership has been specifically studied in view of the impact and relation with both patient safety and patient outcome. This write-up intends to explore and evaluate giving reflection to organisational structure, and the relationship with both individual and departmental contexts. Quality management systems are a fundamental application in understanding perceptual and conditional approaches to management within organisations. Moreover, the relation in healthcare leads to a link with a safety culture, which has a predominant understanding of the relation to resident outcome.
Many authors have argued on the actual definition of what is a safety culture, and it can be outlined that a safety culture is the adoption of a multifaceted approach in the optimization of interventions. Moreover, the context of leadership is also central in management, as it bridges high-performance organisations with enhanced approaches in organisational capability within the systems approach. The relevance of the key factors outlined are essential in organisational management and strategy, with consideration to performance indicators.
Design and safety in long-term care (LTC)
Design in patient safety has been a major consideration in healthcare, including long-term care. Healthcare systems and processes whilst evolving with research are still related to patient safety and the link between human and error has been long studied. Patient safety is not the result of one person in isolation but rather the interaction of multiple components within a system.
The impact of adverse events on patient safety is complex and this discussion should lead to exploring human behaviour within the context of system-based interventions, with particular attention to the environment and design.
Active failures and latent factors need to be highlighted for the identification of the extent of the impact on patient safety, in objective terms. Design and the human factor are fundamental as sentinel risk factors are related to human failures, as a root cause. Human factor relates to the science-based on understanding human behaviour and cognition in the implementation of strategies that focus on human limitations and capabilities.
Design and patient safety are identified as prime factor to relate with literature that is focused on the expression of design, in relation to the human factor with specific examples of factors that effect and increase risks within patient safety, such as medication errors. Several evidence-based papers reflect the combinate enhancement to the reflection of well-being.