Survey: Patient Safety Top Priority for Hospital C-Suiters

Among hospital C-suite executives and risk managers, patient safety is by far the number one priority for most, but a combination of threats and barriers are making it harder to maintain the highest level of patient safety, according to a survey from AIG and Marty Makary, MD, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

Roughly 250 hospital C-suite executives and 100 risk managers took a survey at the end of 2012 asking about patient safety and hospital risk. Here were some of the biggest takeaways from the survey:

•    Patient safety and financial issues are competing for hospital executives' attention. Although 64 percent of the C-suite said maximizing patient safety was their highest priority, only 33 percent of their time was devoted to it. In contrast, only 2 percent of the C-suite said having sound finances was their highest priority, but 16 percent of their time was concentrated on that goal.

•    Being financially sustainable was listed as the number one overall hospital risk, ahead of implementing healthcare reform and maximizing patient care and safety.

•    Almost all of survey hospital C-suite executives (98 percent) said every staff member is responsible for patient safety, but more than half said nurses actually "own" patient safety.

•    The biggest barriers to patient safety were a lack of teamwork, negative hospital culture and poor communication.

To download the survey results, click here.

More Articles on Patient Safety:

Patient Safety Tool: Guide to Developing Private Performance Reports
How Can Healthcare Organizations Measure "Soft" Aspects of Patient Safety?
Healthgrades Names 2013 Patient Safety Award Winners

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