Barriers to Implementation of Patient Safety Systems in Healthcare Institutions

Abstract

The objective of this study was to identify barriers to implementation of patient safety systems in healthcare institutions to serve as baseline data for healthcare senior leadership and policy makers. The Delphi method for gaining consensus from a group of experts and forecasting significant issues in the field of the Delphi panel expertise was used. Data collection included a series of questionnaires. Twenty-three experts in healthcare quality and healthcare systems approach, representing 18 U.S. states, participated in the survey rounds. The first iteration of the survey returned a variety of barriers to implementing patient safety systems in healthcare institutions. All suggested barriers were grouped thematically, and 29 different barriers were formed. During the second and third survey rounds, the Delphi panelists were asked to rank the importance of each barrier on a 4-point Likert scale. Addressing the identified "top 7" barriers to implementation of patient safety systems carries great potential for enhancing the implementation of safety healthcare systems. Importantly, all "top 7" barriers are systemic in nature. Thus, the efforts of individual institutions, while very important, will be less successful than a broader systemic approach across the U.S. healthcare system. This study is significant because the results are expected to assist healthcare administrators and healthcare policy makers in eliminating barriers to healthcare quality and improving patient safety.