Just culture-changing the environment of healthcare delivery.

Abstract

Although errors cannot be totally eliminated, they can be reduced by adopting a system of accountability that requires employees to self-report errors in the interest of patient safety. Traditional laboratory accountability systems are based on a culture of blame, focusing on punishing individuals, and with little emphasis on learning lessons from the errors. Under a just culture laboratory accountability system, if factors in the environment or process contributed to an error, the individual should not be punished. Rather, they and the system can both identify improvements for processes so that this type of error does not reoccur. Using this approach, laboratory services can be made safer for current and future patients.