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A Phenomenological Study of How Leadership Efficacy Affects the Culture of Operating Room Safety

<p>Patient safety remains a global challenge that has required constant resolve to improve personnel skills, responsiveness to detail, and transformational actions. This phenomenological study explored how an operating room?s culture of patient safety was affected by the efficacy of its leadership in managing its critical qualitative safety characteristics. Despite the current technological advances and various patient safety measures, studies have reported not only an increasing number of preventable sentinel events, but also recurring mistakes that continue to cause death or serious health complications. There have been numerous administrative attempts to improve the culture of safety in the operating room using performance evaluations, check off sheets, patient satisfaction surveys, and educational seminars. However, the number of patient safety infractions continues to increase. There has not been a model that investigated how leadership efficacy affected an operating room?s culture of patient safety. The paradigm applied in this study established the relevance that leadership efficacy could have in strengthening the operating room?s culture of safety. The hermeneutic-styled, phenomenological case study examined the operating room personnel?s perception of the operating room?s leadership efficacy, and how the personnel?s perceptions of the quality safety characteristics affected the culture of patient safety. The study implemented a non-probability, non-random sample that consisted of 18 skilled surgical personnel of a Level II Trauma Center facility located in Central Florida. The study employed a phenomenological methodology of collection and hermeneutic dissection of interview data. Analysis revealed several findings that established a positive link between each of the qualitative safety characteristics, the qualities of effective leadership, and a progressive culture of patient safety. Future studies could be expanded to include operating room personnel from multiple facilities of the same health organization, and operating room personnel from multiple facilities of multiple health organizations.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10634329
Date18 November 2017
CreatorsKavanaugh, Irenaanna
PublisherNorthcentral University
Source SetsProQuest.com
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typethesis

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