Safety attitudes of caregivers: The case of healthcare organizations in Mexico

The treatment of patients may be regarded as a complex process involving, inter alia, sophisticated technology, medicine, diverse patients, multiple work process, and various professional disciplines. On the other hand, based on previous experiences of other industries such as, the nuclear, aviation, oil and gas the healthcare system is susceptible to failure. Systems failures may include sound alike drugs, poorly designed devices and equipment, poor team work and communication, human error, etc. Given this, patient safety has become a priority recently. The paper presents some discussion about the ongoing research project intended to assess the safety attitudes of caregivers of four healthcare systems in Mexico. The approach has been the adoption of the "Safety Attitude Questionnaire" (SAQ) has been developed by the University of Texas, Center of Excellence for patient Safety research and Practice. The SAQ have been applied to four healthcare systems. The analysis of the questionnaires is being conducted. Currently, a larger healthcare organization than the four reported here is being considered for the application of the SAQ.