Safety, systems, complexity, and resilience: What makes organizations safe?
This chapter proposes that when viewing the activities of a hospital, it is helpful to see the organization as a complex adaptive system (CAS). Complex organizations are made up of inter-relating subunits, and those subunits, in turn, consist of micro-communities of individuals. The reciprocal interaction of these micro-communities co-creates the culture of these subunits and, by scaling up, the culture of the organization itself. Healthcare organizations can be viewed as complex adaptive systems, requiring the application of systems thinking, and safety is seen as an emergent property of the interrelationship of subunits and the individuals within them.
Keywords: healthcare organizations, complex adaptive system, complex organizations, healthcare systems, patient safety
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .