Work Performance and Healthcare Safety Paper 2022

Work Performance and Healthcare Safety
Student’s name
Institutional affiliation
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Introduction
Human factors are considered to be the organizational, environmental, human and
workplace factors that affect the behavior of workers which in turn affects work performance,
quality and safety of care in the health institutions. There are numerous human factors that
influence the quality of care and patient safety. These human factors are also known as
ergonomic factors. These factors include the workload and working shifts, the workplace
environment and design, the culture and communication at the work, the type of leadership,
existing laws and policies, the level of skills, job satisfaction, staffing ratio communication and
professional development. In my opinion, human factors are the main determinants of safety and
quality in healthcare. This paper focuses on such human factors that impact on work
performance and their relationship to the quality and safety of care in health.
Human factors and their relationship to quality and safety
In every health institution, there are different work patterns set to fit the work load and
the available work shifts. The number of working hours in a day and the amount of work in those
hours may affect the productivity of the workers. Some people are more suited to working at
night while others prefer to work during the day. However, working for long hours irrespective
of the time of the day causes fatigue and lowers productivity levels of workers. Many hospitals
however still prefer to have their workers working for long hours as opposed to hiring new
workers to save on costs (Hall, Johnson, Watt, Tsipa, & O’Connor 2016). Due to different
financial needs, workers may also prefer to work for longer hours to get overtime payments and
remunerations which lowers their productivity levels and affects the quality of care. Patient
safety also reduces significantly as a result.

According to Dekker, (2016) the work environment and design also influences work
performance among workers. The work environment involves both physical and non-material
surroundings of workers. Physical and nonphysical environment includes buildings, colleagues,
patients, climate and competition among others. The environment influences how people behave
and how they perceive different things as well. For instance, rainy weather may limit health
workers from moving from one block to another within the hospital. The environment may also
affect people in various ways. People are allergic to various conditions such as climate or
medicines and once such things are not regulated in their immediate environment, it might lower
their productivity levels. Reduction in productivity levels affects quality of care and patient
safety.
Communication is an important aspect in the healthcare environment Braithwaite, Wears,
& Hollnagel, 2015). Good flow of communication from the management to the workers is
essential in healthcare institutions as it enhances understanding among the workers.
Communication coordinates other aspects of management and administration and it makes it
possible to have division of labor, unity of purposes and other elements of competency. Errors in
communication may result in clinical errors and it is therefore essential to uphold good
communication skills in order to prevent such clinical errors that would otherwise lower the
quality of services being offered in the health care institution.
The workplace culture entails the beliefs, norms and work tradition of workers in the
institution (Salyers, Bonfils, Luther, Firmin, White, Adams, & Rollins, 2017). Workplace culture
is also an important determinant of work performance. Cultures may be formal or informal or
both. Formal cultures are normally set by management and they might be health and promote
workers to cooperate and to improve quality of care. Informal cultures may develop