Incorporating Patient Safety Culture in Healthcare: A Change Management Perspective

This paper discusses the importance of incorporating patient safety culture in healthcare as a change management process with the assistance of transformational leadership strategies. It explores the challenges faced by the healthcare industry in Australia and suggests that adopting transformational leadership and implementing Kurt Lewin's change management theory can lead to improved quality of care, reduced medication errors, increased transparency, and higher patient satisfaction.

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LEADERSHIP
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction:
Change is occurring at a rapid pace in the health care industry, which further intensifying
the need of leaders to involve in the process (Neves & Schyns, 2018). Incorporating patient
safety culture in healthcare as a change management process with the assistance of
transformational leadership strategies would improve professional practice, reduce medication
errors and facilitate patient satisfaction. This paper will provide change management by
incorporating leadership theory and plan for research in the following paragraphs.
Discussion:
Patient safety and quality care are common concerns of the health care industry in
Australia since due to a shortage of workforce, health professionals are struggling to provide the
best quality of care to each patient who is seeking help (Van Rossum et al., 2016). Consequently,
the patients are experiencing the compromised quality of care, frequent medication error, and
unmet clinical needs. This compromised professional practice reduces the patient flow and
growth of the hospital. The documented literature suggested that incorporating patient safety
culture in the health care sectors will improve the quality of care, reduce medication errors,
increase the transparency of patients and increase patient satisfaction (Rosenbaum, More &
Steane, 2018). In order to bring the change, the hospital authorities are required to suitable adopt
leadership style such as transformational leadership. As stated transformational leadership is a
leadership theory where leaders work with the team in order to identify the needed change, create
the vision for guiding the changing through motivation and executive change with the
collaboration of other members (Steigenberger, 2015). This is the most effective form of
leadership where leaders work with employees by motivating them and sharing opinion. Taking
an insight into the situation, in order to incorporate the change such as patient safety culture in

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health care, health care authorities need to adopt transformational leaders and follows certain
strategies to make the changes. The strategies include communicating with health care staffs
directly for identifying contributing factors behind safety issues, monitoring the performance of
staffs, creating a vision for all employees and share with them to achieving the desired goal
(Johannsdottir, Olafsson & Davidsdottir, 2015). The leaders are required to involve the health
care staffs in training and literacy session to reduce the incidents that question the safety of the
patient.
In order to implement this change, Kurt Lewin's change management theory is required
to incorporate which has three stages. After identification of contributing factors behind safety
issues, the first stage is unfreezing. In this stage, the organization is required to communicate
with health professionals regarding the change such as prioritizing the patient safety as a prime
focus of practice and benefits of it (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2016). The organization
must design training session, meeting and literacy session and amend existing policies for
employees to implement the change. When the change is taking shape and employees embrace
new ways of working, the hospital trustee board is required to evaluate the practice of health
professionals for ensuring successful implementation of change (Cummings, Bridgman &
Brown, 2016).
Conclusion:
Thus it can be concluded that that incorporating patient safety culture in the health care
sector will improve the quality of care, reduce the medication errors, increase the transparency of
patients and increase patient satisfaction. For bringing this change, health care is required to
adopt a transformational leadership style and design plans to implement changes.

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References:
Cummings, S., Bridgman, T., & Brown, K. G. (2016). Unfreezing change as three steps:
Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. Human relations, 69(1), 33-60.
Johannsdottir, L., Olafsson, S., & Davidsdottir, B. (2015). Leadership role and employee
acceptance of change: Implementing environmental sustainability strategies within nordic
insurance companies. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(1), 72-96.
Neves, P., & Schyns, B. (2018). With the Bad Comes What Change? The Interplay Between
Destructive Leadership and Organizational Change. Journal of Change
Management, 18(2), 91-95.
Rosenbaum, D., More, E., & Steane, P. (2018). Planned organisational change management:
Forward to the past? An exploratory literature review. Journal of Organizational Change
Management, 31(2), 286-303.
Steigenberger, N. (2015). Emotions in sensemaking: a change management perspective. Journal
of Organizational Change Management, 28(3), 432-451.
Van Rossum, L., Aij, K. H., Simons, F. E., van der Eng, N., & ten Have, W. D. (2016). Lean
healthcare from a change management perspective: The role of leadership and workforce
flexibility in an operating theatre. Journal of health organization and management, 30(3),
475-493.