Creating a culture of safety: Leadership, teams, and tools

An organization's culture is difficult to quantify. Often it is described simply as “The way we do things around here.” In the face of such ambiguity, how can an organization know when it has achieved its goal of creating a culture of safety? Can the answer be found in the number of reported events, such as patient falls or medication errors? Is it in the number of near misses reported or described by staff? Should it be based on whether the organization achieves compliance with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' National Patient Safety goals, or can it be found in measurements obtained through staff assessments?