ABSTRACT
Much has been written about the need for healthcare organisations to create a positive safety culture. This chapter describes how three types of safety tools have been adapted and implemented in healthcare: culture surveys, safety walk rounds and checklists, and discusses the barriers to improving safety culture in healthcare. Various safety culture tools and approaches have been adapted from other industries and tailored to measure safety culture in healthcare organisations. Safety climate surveys are well embedded as measures of safety culture in industry and have also been translated and applied in healthcare. The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire and Hospital Safety Culture Survey are the two most commonly used safety climate surveys in healthcare. Launched as a national safety improvement initiative by the National Patient Safety Agency in 2009, the wide variation in approaches to its implementation provide a good case study about how safety cultures vary across different hospitals.
