Evaluating the patient safety potential of two Finnish hospitals by applying the disc model

Achieving good patient safety requires the existence of certain organizational properties. We call these organizational properties the patient safety culture (PSC) of the organization. Reiman et al. (2010) have defined patient safety culture as the willingness and ability of an organization to understand safety as well as the willingness and ability to act on safety. PSC creates the preconditions of work and influences the situational possibilities for action. By evaluating the state of the patient safety culture we are able to get an estimate of the level of patient safety. This can be called the safety potential of the organization.