Building a culture of safety in Australian residential aged care facilities: protocol for a longitudinal mixed methods research programme

TL;DR

This study aims to improve safety and quality in Australian aged care facilities by measuring and changing organizational culture through surveys, fieldwork, and program evaluation.

Contribution

The study introduces a validated survey and a culture change program specifically tailored for aged care facilities in Australia.

Findings

A validated survey will measure organizational culture and its link to care quality and safety.

Ethnographic insights will reveal how cultural assumptions influence safety practices.

The effectiveness of a culture change program will be evaluated through pre- and post-implementation surveys.

Abstract

The quality and safety of care within residential aged care facilities (RACFs) have been linked to their organisational culture. However, evidence for understanding and improving culture in this setting is limited. This research programme aims to validate a survey to measure organisational culture and determine the relationship of culture with safety and quality of care, then to evaluate an organisational culture change programme in Australian RACFs.

This is a longitudinal mixed methods programme of research conducted across four studies in collaboration with a national aged care provider that cares for more than 5000 residents:

Study 1: Cross-sectional staff survey of organisational culture in >50 RACFs with concurrent collection of data on quality and safety of care, and staff outcomes, to explore their associations with culture.

Study 2: Ethnographic fieldwork in eight RACFs sampled to achieve maximum variation. Data from interviews, observations and documents will be analysed to identify the underlying assumptions and how cultural assumptions influence the enactment of safety and quality.

Study 3: Evaluation of the implementation of the Speak Up for Safety culture change programme, focusing on its contextualisation for RACFs, implementation determinants and outcomes. Data will be collected through semistructured interviews, complimented with secondary data from program training and feedback system usage.

Study 4: Evaluation of the effectiveness of the culture change programme using baseline data from study 1 and a follow-up survey of organisational culture postimplementation to assess changes in organisational culture and staff behaviour.

The study has received approval from the Macquarie University Human Research Ethics Committee. Informed consent will be sought from all participants. Findings will be disseminated through journal articles, conference presentations and reports to the collaborating provider and RACFs. Survey data will be deposited into a data repository for use by others working on related research.

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