Patient safety walkrounds; 5 years of experience in a developing country

Patient safety walkround (PSWR) is an appropriate technique for senior managers' participation and collaboration with frontline staff to promote safety culture in hospitals. This study was conducted to assess the 5-year PSWR experience in Shahid Mahallati Hospital in Tabriz, Iran.

This was a triangulated cross-sectional study. All documents, instructions, reports, action plans, protocols, and verbal feedbacks on PSWRs were reviewed from 2013 to 2017. Data were extracted using goal-driven extraction form and analyzed using Excel 2016 software.

A total of 174 90-minute PSWRs were conducted during the study period, and 1372 safety issues were identified. Work environment factors (32.5%), organization and management (18.14%), and tasks (18.07%) were the most frequent identified issues, respectively. About 75.5% of the issues were resolved through corrective interventions implementation.

PSWRs provide a great opportunity to identify and resolve the safety issues in the hospitals. Senior managers' participation and their support of staffs opinions and innovations were reinforced through PSWRs. Moreover, it creates mutual trust and safety responsiveness at all organizational levels in the hospital.