Analysis of the Correlation between Hospital Accreditation and Patient Safety Culture

Methods: Data was collected from the Taiwan Patient Safety Culture Survey (TPSCS) conducted from 2007 to 2011. We used the trend analysis to examine the impact of accreditation on PSC. The results of hospital's PSC were divided into four groups based on “year of accreditation”: One year before the accreditation (A-1); the year of the accreditation (A0); one year after the accreditation (A1); and two years after the accreditation (A2). Using ANOVA, the differences in the PSC of the different years were analyzed. Results: From 2007 to 2011, a total of 10 hospitals participated in the TPSCS consecutively, and they received hospital accreditation either in 2008 or 2009. The results show that teamwork climate was significantly increased from 34.9% to 53.4% (p<0.01), safety climate was significantly increased from 29.1% to 48.6% ( p<0.01), job satisfaction was significantly increased from 39.8% to 49.3% ( p=0.03), perception of management was significantly increased from 36.5% to 46.2% ( p=0.01), working conditions was significantly increased, from 35.0% to 50.5% ( p<0.01). All the perspectives significantly increased during the accreditation year compared to the previous year (p<0.05), while perception to job satisfaction and working conditions decreased two years after the accreditation.

Conclusions: The research results show that hospital accreditation has significantly positive influence on its safety climate, and the effects can maintain at least one to two years after accreditation. More studies are needed to identify the factors contributing to the decrease in job satisfaction and working conditions.