Health care experts have long known of a link between patient outcomes and a hospital’s organizational culture, according to an article in the New York Times by Pauline W. Chen, MD.
“Heart attack patients who are treated at hospitals where nurses feel powerless and senior management is only sporadically involved in patient care tend to fare more poorly than patients hospitalized at institutions where nurses are asked regularly for their input and chief executives hold regular meetings with clinicians to review patient results,” she wrote.
But there is hope for change, Dr. Chen noted, and it’s demonstrable, citing a group of researchers that has written about strategies targeting hospital organizational culture called “Leadership Saves Lives.” The researchers showed hospitals could create significant cultural changes, which could impact patient outcomes, in just 2 years.
“Leadership Saves Lives requires that each hospital create a ‘Guiding Coalition,’ a group of staff members from across the entire institution. The coalition members participate in regular workshops, discussions, and national forums on ways hospitals might improve, then help their respective hospital translate newfound ideas and information into clinical practice,” she wrote.
The researchers monitored heart attack patients to assess the effect of Leadership Saves Lives in 10 hospitals that had below average patient outcomes. Over 2 years, all 10 hospitals changed significantly, but 6 hospitals experienced particularly profound cultural transformations.
“The staff of these hospitals spoke of an institutional shift from ‘because I said so’ to ‘focusing on the why’s,’ ” Dr. Chen wrote. “Instead of accepting that every heart attack patient had to undergo certain testing or take specific drugs because the chief of the department or administrator had previously established such clinical protocols, for example, it became more important to provide the data that proved such rituals were actually helpful. Staff members in these hospitals also said they received, and appreciated, increased support from senior management and a newfound freedom to voice opinions in ‘more of an equal role, no matter what position you are.’ ”
The degree of an institution’s cultural change was directly linked to patient outcomes, the researchers found. Indeed, hospitals that made more substantial changes in their work culture realized larger and more sustained drops in heart attack mortality rates.
References
1. Chen PW. A More Egalitarian Hospital Culture Is Better for Everyone. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/well/live/doctors-patients-hospital-culture-better-health.html. Published May 31, 2018. Accessed June 1, 2018.
2. Curry LA et al. Organizational culture change in U.S. hospitals: A mixed methods longitudinal intervention study. Implementation Science. 2015 Mar 7. doi: 10.1186/s13012-015-0218-0. Accessed June 18, 2018.