Organizational learning and patient safety: hospital pharmacy settings

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between organizational learning and patient safety culture in hospital pharmacy settings as determined by the learning organization survey short-form (LOS-27) and pharmacy survey on patient safety culture instruments, and to further explore how dimensions of organizational learning relate to dimensions of pharmacy patient safety culture. Design/methodology/approach: This study is a cross-sectional study. Data were obtained from three public hospital pharmacies and three private hospital pharmacies in Kuwait. Partial least square structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Findings: A total of 272 surveys (59.1 percent response rate) were completed and returned. The results indicated a significant positive relationship between organizational learning and patient safety culture in hospital pharmacy settings (path coefficient of 0.826, p-value <0.05 and R2 of 0.683). Several dimensions of the organizational learning showed significant links to the various dimensions of the pharmacy patient safety culture. Specifically, training (TRN), management that reinforces learning (MRL) and supportive learning environment (SLE) had the strongest effects on the pharmacy patient safety culture dimensions. Moreover, these effects indicated that MRL, SLE and TRN were associated with improvements in most dimensions of pharmacy patient safety culture. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to assess the relationship between organizational learning, patient safety culture and their dimensions in hospital pharmacy settings.