Rapport Patiëntveiligheid, de rol van de bestuurder - Veilige zorg ...

summary in englishPatient safety – the role of the boardIntroduction – patient safety is a problem, boards have responsibility,there is no known solutionAround the globe patient safety has become a major issue in the health care.There is however a discrepancy between the gravity of the problem and thefrailty of the solutions. On one hand there is an incremental attention for theproblems regarding patient safety and ditto pressure on healthcare professionals,organizations and regulators to curtail the extent of unintendedharm to patients. On the other hand the pace at which solutions are appliedis frustratingly slow and the results of research on implemented solutionsare often ambiguous at best. Patient safety is proving to be a problem that isparticularly challenging to solve. In many western countries society andauthorities are increasingly holding healthcare managers and board membersresponsible for unsafety within their institutions. There is however noknown strategy for effective board-level leadership on patient safety improvement.This research focuses on how healthcare board members and managerscan lead sustainable patient safety improvements.The research question – patient safety, the role of the boardThe central question of this study is:- Did the board of the UMC Utrecht lead patient safety improvements effectively?There are several sub-questions, divided over three clusters:1 Theoretical- Which traits of the patient safety problem are relevant from a boardperspective?- Which problems impede boards in leading professionals and professionalorganizations?- Which strategies have been described to cope with these problems?2 Empirical- What kind of problems surfaced during the three studied cases?- Which strategies were applied to cope with these problems?- How have these strategies helped improve patient safety?380summary