Leadership to promote patient safety culture in public hospitals managed by social health organizations.

Purpose: This paper aims to identify the kind of internal climate leaders should offer health-care professionals to promote a patient safety culture in public hospitals managed by social health organizations in Brazil.

Design/methodology/approach: Two surveys were applied to health-care professionals working at three Brazilian public hospitals. The internal climate survey reached 1,013 respondents, and the patient safety culture survey reached 1,302 participants. Both factor and regression analyses were used to analyze the study model and determine how internal climate influences patient safety culture.

Findings: Results indicate that to promote a patient safety culture among health-care professionals, leaders should generate an internal climate based on trust to foster pride in working in the hospital. Possibly, the trust dimension is the most important one and must be developed to achieve job satisfaction and provide better services to patients.

Research limitations/implications: All the hospitals studied were managed by the same Organização Social de Saúde. Due to the limited responses concerning the respondents' profiles, demographic variables were not analyzed.

Practical implications: This research reveals that the trust and pride dimensions can most strongly influence a positive patient safety culture, helping hospital leaders face this huge managerial challenge of consistently delivering high standards of patient safety.

Originality/value: This research studies the promotion of a patient safety culture in public hospitals managed by social health organizations, characterized by greater flexibility and autonomy in health-care management and by a greater need for accountability.