A Fragmented Patient Safety Concept: The Structure and Culture of Safety Management in Healthcare

Safety in healthcare organizations is often an ownerless process with responsibility falling under a myriad of departments that individually are coordinating initiatives to improve aspects of safety. In contrast, other high-hazard industries seek to institutionalize safety management as a key characteristic of organizational culture. Healthcare seeks to model its approach to patient safety on other high-hazard industry models, but without an understanding of the impact of creating a uniform approach to safety management, healthcare organizations will not implement a similar organization-wide safety culture.