A SOCIO-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
ON PATIENT SAFETY
To err is human, to cover up is unforgivable,
and to fail to learn is inexcusable.
Sir Liam Donaldson,
World Alliance for Patient Safety,
27 October 2004
A Socio-cultural Perspective on Patient Safety
EDITED BY
EMMA ROWLEY
University of Nottingham, UK
&
JUSTIN WARING
Nottingham University Business School, UK
ASHGATE
Emma Rowley and Justin Waring 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Emma Rowley and Justin Waring have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited
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Union Road
Farnham
Surrey, GU9 7PT
England
Ashgate Publishing Company
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A socio-cultural perspective on patient safety.
1. Hospital care--Safety measures. 2. Medical care-
Quality control. 3. Clinical competence.
I. Rowley, Emma. II. Waring, Justin.
362.11-dc22
ISBN: 978-1-4094-0862-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-4094-0863-5 (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-4094-8686-2 (ebk-ePUB)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A socio-cultural perspective on patient safety / [edited] by Emma Rowley and Justin Waring.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-0862-8 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-4094-0863-5 (ebook)
I. Rowley, Emma. II. Waring, Justin.
[DNLM: 1. Medical Errors--prevention & control. 2. Safety Management. 3.
Culture. 4. Patient Advocacy. WB 100]
LCClassification not assigned
610.289--dc23
2011028486
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group, UK.
Contents
Emma Rowley and Justin Waring
Cecily Palmer and Toby Murcott
Josephine Ocloo
Anat Drach-Zahavy and Anit Somech
Jessica Mesman
Emma Rowley
Habibollah Pirnejad and Roland Bal
Justin Waring and Graeme Currie
Simon Bishop and Justin Waring
Jeanne Mengis and Davide Nicolini
Rick Iedema
Justin Waring and Emma Rowley
Author Biographies
Roland Bal is Professor of Healthcare Governance at the Institute of Health Policy and Management in Rotterdam, Netherlands. His research interests lie with the governance of health care, especially in terms of quality and safety.
Paul Barach is Visiting Professor the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. He has over 15 years experience in researching, teaching and applying human factors and quality improvement methods to health care and has been involved as a clinician, educator, researcher and policy-maker in enhancing health care improvement and patient safety policy in the United States, Europe and, more recently, in Australia.
Simon Bishop is lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at Nottingham University Business School. His research interests include work and employment in networked organisations; privatization and publicprivate partnerships; translating evidence to practice in health care; knowledge-sharing within and between organisations; health service reform and individual identity; qualitative and quantitative analysis of social networks and new managerial technologies in health care.
Graeme Currie is Professor of Public Management at Warwick Business School, UK. His work focuses on new organizational forms in health care; team-working in public services; knowledge management in health care and related industries and leadership in schools and health care organizations.
Anat Drach-Zahavy is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Health and Welfare Sciences at the University of Haifa, Israel. She is the head of the research centre for the study, implementation and assimilation of evidence-based practice. Her research is in the areas of teamwork, safety and employees health.
Rick Iedema is a Research Professor in Organizational Communication and Director at the Centre for Health Communication, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney. His work addresses how the organization and communication of clinical work impact on patients safety and well-being.
Jeanne Mengis is a senior research fellow at IKON and an Assistant Professor at the University of Lugano, Switzerland. In her research, she works on a communication perspective on knowledge processes in organizations and conducts research on cross-disciplinary collaboration, knowledge integration and evidence-based learning.
Jessica Mesman is senior lecturer at the Department of Technology and Society Studies at Maastricht University, Netherlands. Her ethnographic studies include investigations on neonatal intensive care units of what actually takes place at the interface of diagnosis and prognosis, of practitioners and technology, of medical facts and moral concerns.
Toby Murcott is a freelance science writer and journalist. Toby led the media analysis in the synthesis and narrative review of the UKs Patient Safety Research Portfolio outputs.
Davide Nicolini is joint Director of IKON and the Warwick Institute of Health, at Warwick Business School, UK. His work examines practice-based approaches to the study of knowing, learning and change in organizations; innovation process in health care and other complex environments; advancement of action-based approaches to learning and change and the study and promotion of safety.
Josephine Ocloos background is in social work. Now specializing in patient safety, her research interests include medical harm, patient safety and empowering patients and the public in patient safety, tackling health inequalities, racism and broader areas of discrimination.
Cecily Palmer is a research fellow at University College London, UK. Cecily led the fieldwork and data analysis for a synthesis and narrative review of the research commissioned under the Patient Safety Research Portfolio (PSRP) the UKs main source of funding for patient safety research. The review established principles to guide future patient safety research and investigated the wider impact of the PSRP research corpus.
Habibollah Pirnejad is Assistant Professor of Medical Informatics at the Urmia Medical Science University, Iran. He was a research fellow in Health Informatics at the Department of Health Policy and Management, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands. His research focuses on the application of information technology to improve communication and collaboration between health care professionals, especially concerning patient safety and workflow issues.
Emma Rowley is a senior research fellow at the University of Nottingham, UK. Emmas work combines theoretical arguments from medical sociology, science and technology studies and organizational studies in investigating the translation and utilization of innovative medical technologies in a number of health care contexts. Of particular interest is how patient safety is negotiated when technologies and guidelines are introduced into practice.
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