Barriers to patient safety culture: Insights from Frontline Healthcare workers
Keywords:
Patient safety culture, Frontline healthcare workers, Communication breakdown, Underreporting, Workload pressure, Staff shortages, Missed care, Safety training, Organizational leadership, Adverse eventsAbstract
This paper examines the important roadblocks to patient safety culture using the reflections of frontline medical professionals. The main objective was to determine what is sabotaging the safety culture practice in the clinical environment. In the review of 34 peer-reviewed sources, the study examined the issues within six dimensions: communication failures, the fear of blaming, workloads, inadequate staffing, ineffective training, and employee-driven solutions. The main implications include consistent underreporting that is driven by a punitive culture, decay of skills because rare training and safety violations caused by staff overloads. It is stated that leadership involvement, reinforcement of behaviour-based safety, and training, depending on the context, should be encouraged. This study can add to the already existing body of research promoting the engagement of the front line and systemic change to ensure sustainable changes in patient safety culture.
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