Framework of monitoring patient safety culture by the bootstrap method

Abstract

This study proposes a framework to monitor the patient safety culture by means of a safety attitudes questionnaire by using the bootstrap method to determine the performance of each dimension of safety attitudes questionnaire in each year based on a small sample size. The focus is not the bootstrap method itself but the philosophy of using the bootstrap method to construct the control chart-like limits to observe the performance of each dimension based on the small sample size. Hospital management can better understand how each dimension performs on a yearly basis from the data available. When more new data are available, the boundaries generated by the bootstrap method can be adjusted. Besides, the trends and changes for each dimension can be traced in a control chart that enables hospital management to observe how the patient safety culture changes from time to time. This study demonstrates the philosophy of using the bootstrap method when the sample size is seven for each dimension. The trends and changes for each dimension can be observed for hospital management by construction its control chart.