The effect of executive managers' walk round on patient safety culture in emergency nurses

INTRODUCTION : Effective teamwork is vital in providing safe and effective patient care, especially in a high-risk setting such as the emergency ward. The culture of patient safety has a direct impact on the way work is performed and, consequently, on the safety of patients. One of the ways to promote the patient safety culture is to support the hospital's management team and improve the teamwork climate. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of executive managers' walk-round on patient safety culture in emergency ward nurses. MATERIAL AND METHODS : This quasi-experimental study was carried out in four emergency wards (two wards for the experimental group and two wards for the control group) in Darab Hospital. From each group, 32 nurses were selected by stratified random sampling method and participated in the study. For the experimental group, executive managers’ walk rounds were conducted for five months. The safety culture questionnaire was completed before and after the intervention in both groups. Data were analysed with SPSS22. RESULTS: The average scores of the patient safety culture of the two experimental and control groups were not statistically different before the intervention. Overall, the total score of the intervention group was 130.44 ± 7.80 and that of the control group was 124.19 ± 8.76 after the intervention, which showed a statistically significant difference (p ≤ 0.001). More specifically, in the intervention group, the scores of “teamwork within hospital units” (p = 0.015), “overall perceptions of safety” (p = 0.042), “communication openness” (p = 0.020), “non-punitive response to the error” (p = 0.001), “feedback and communication about errors” (p = 0.021) were higher compared to the control group. CONCLUSIONS: This study provided further insight into the importance of hospital management's support in improving patient safety culture. Executive managers' walk-rounds increased the culture of patient safety perceptions of emergency ward nurses; thus, it is suggested to regularly conduct executive managers' walk-rounds to improve the level of patient safety and increase the quality of service to patients.