One in every ten hospitalized patients suffers from an unintended or undesirable outcome of treatment, often referred to as complications. Organizations in healthcare need to learn from these...Show moreOne in every ten hospitalized patients suffers from an unintended or undesirable outcome of treatment, often referred to as complications. Organizations in healthcare need to learn from these events to prevent recurrences and improve patient safety. However, the methods used to learn from these complications do not appear to have the desired effect, evident from the absence of a decrease in complications. To improve learning processes, it is necessary to know which steps hamper the learning process, thereby hindering optimal learning. For this pilot study the theoretical framework ‘Learning from Incidents Process’ (LFIP) (Drupsteen et al., 2013) is introduced in the healthcare domain. Originally the framework was developed for the (non-healthcare) industry to identify bottlenecks that inhibit learning processes and to get an indication of the use of learning potential throughout the process. The model is renamed as ‘Learning from Complications Process’ (LFCP) to fit the healthcare context. With this study the LFCP-model is introduced and applied in a hospital setting, aiming to answer the following research questions (1) Are the steps in the LFCP formally arranged and executed at Hospital X and how well do they work according to the medical staff? (2) At what steps in the LFCP does the medical staff experience bottlenecks, that hamper the learning process and its outcomes? (3) To what extent does psychological safety influence this learning process? The internal consistency of the LFCP-questionnaire was tested on an M-Turk sample of healthcare employees, to justify use within a healthcare setting. To answer the hypotheses, a mixed-methods design is applied. The data for this study were gathered by use of online questionnaires (N = 6), semi-structured interviews (N = 3) and online observations (N = 13). It is expected to find results indicating sub-optimal use of learning potential, and a diversity of bottlenecks throughout the LFCP. Results showed a significant decline in formally arranged, executed and quality of executed steps throughout the LFCP. Consequently, the use of learning potential followed this line of decline, with the biggest loss of learning potential at the evaluation stage. Bottlenecks were identified after stage 1 ‘Understanding causation’. However, no correlation was found between psychological safety and the LFCP. These results indicate that there is ample room to improve the quality of the learning processes, implying that patient safety can be further enhanced by improving the quality of total learning processes. For the future the LFCP-model can be used as a tool to quantify results of interventions to improve the quality of learning processes. Because of the small sample size this pilot study is a proof of concept. Therefore, no hard inferences can be drawn, and results should be treated with the utmost caution.Show less
In times of rapid change, like what the world is currently going through, certain organizational circumstances might facilitate adapting to novel situations, especially in complex organizations...Show moreIn times of rapid change, like what the world is currently going through, certain organizational circumstances might facilitate adapting to novel situations, especially in complex organizations like health care. Health care workers having an innovative mindset might be one of these circumstances. Further, this mindset and health care workers’ innovative work behaviours (IWB) might be facilitated by the existence of psychological safety within their work teams. However, to understand the relationship between psychological safety and IWB and to be able to induce it, it is crucial to understand what dynamics underlie this relationship. In this study, the relationship between psychological safety and IWB, and whether this relationship was mediated by tacit and/or explicit knowledge sharing, were investigated. The sample consisted of 182 health care workers (120 females, 62 males, Mage = 36.25) and they were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. Participants filled out an online questionnaire consisting of 36 questions about psychological safety, tacit and explicit knowledge sharing, and IWB within their work teams. Results indicated that while explicit knowledge sharing had an indirect effect on the relationship between psychological safety and innovative work behaviours, indicating mediation, tacit knowledge sharing did not have a significant indirect effect. The cognitive effort involved in sharing knowledge is discussed as a potential reason why a mediating effect was not observed for tacit knowledge sharing. Recommendations for further research and the limitations of the current study are discussed.Show less
Working in teams has become common in many organisations. In studies about the performance of teams, psychological safety has become an popular topic. Psychological safety describes an atmosphere...Show moreWorking in teams has become common in many organisations. In studies about the performance of teams, psychological safety has become an popular topic. Psychological safety describes an atmosphere were employees feel comfortable speaking up about their concerns and new ideas. As the performance of an organisation is often dependent on innovation and innovative behaviour, we propose that psychological safety can positively predict innovative behaviour. Additionally, diversity was studied, specifically the characteristics age, gender, and work experience, and their individual influences on innovative behaviour and psychological safety. Previous research has shown mixed results about the performance of diverse teams, therefore it is necessary to extent research in this field. Data was collected using an online survey with questions regarding innovative behaviour and perceived psychological safety by employees from a Dutch organisation (N = 375). First, we used a simple linear regression to map the relationship between innovative behaviour and psychological safety. Second, we performed a simple linear regression to find the individual influences of age, gender, and work experience on respectively innovative behaviour and psychological safety. Additional analyses were performed to extend insight into the relations and internal structures of these constructs. Results showed that psychological safety is a positive predictor of innovative behaviour and that work experience can predict innovative behaviour in certain circumstances. We conclude that psychological safety can predict innovative behaviour and that diverse characteristics are unlikely to influence both constructs separately. However, further research is necessary to explain the role of diversity in this relationship, as this study has not been able to measure diversity as a team characteristic. Further suggestions and limitations are discussed.Show less
