Assessment of safety culture maturity in a hospital setting

The Manchester Patient Safety Culture Assessment Tool (MaPSCAT) was used to examine the levels of safety culture maturity in four programs across one large healthcare organization. The MaPSCAT is based on a theoretical framework that was developed in the United Kingdom through extensive literature reviews and expert input. It provides a view of safety culture on 10 dimensions (continuous improvement, priority given to safety, system errors and individual responsibility, recording incidents, evaluating incidents, learning and effecting change, communication, personnel management, staff education and teamwork) at five progressive levels of safety maturity. These levels are pathological ("Why waste our time on safety?"), reactive ("We do something when we have an incident"), bureaucratic ("We have systems in place to manage safety"), proactive ("We are always on alert for risks") and generative ("Risk management is an integral part of everything we do"). This article highlights the use of a new tool, the results of a study completed with this tool and how the results can be used to advance safety culture.