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The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between patient safety culture and hospital performance using objective performance measures and secondary data on patient safety culture.

Patient safety culture is measured using data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture. Hospital performance is measured using objective patient safety and operational performance metrics collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Control variables were obtained from the CMS Provider of Service database. The merged data included 154 US hospitals, with an average of 848 respondents per hospital providing culture data. Hierarchical linear regression analysis is used to test the proposed relationships.

The findings indicate that patient safety culture is positively associated with patient safety, process quality and patient satisfaction.

Hospital managers should focus on building a stronger patient safety culture due to its positive relationship with hospital performance.

This is the first study to test these relationships using several objective performance measures and a comprehensive patient safety culture data set that includes a substantial number of respondents per hospital. The study contributes to the literature by explicitly mapping high-reliability organization (HRO) theory to patient safety culture, thereby illustrating how HRO theory can be applied to safety culture in the hospital operations context.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a significant difference between employers and students on their perceptions of the importance of skills and traits critical for securing entry‐level employment in operations management. Another major concern in this study is whether employers value general skills more than technical abilities. To address our research questions, a two‐page questionnaire was developed. We found significant differences in mean scores between employers and students in their perceptions of the importance of general skills, technical skills, and personality characteristics. In addition, our findings indicate that employers value general skills significantly higher than technical skills. The results of this study provide a foundation for operations management programs in curricula reengineering and ultimately provide the business community with more qualified applicants.

Health care delivery is experiencing a multi-faceted epidemic of suffering among patients and care providers. Compassion is defined as noticing, feeling and responding to suffering. However, compassion is typically seen as an individual rather than a more systemic response to suffering and cannot match the scale of the problem as a result. The authors develop a model of a compassion system and details its antecedents (leader behaviors and a compassionate human resource (HR) bundle), its climate or the extent that the organization values, supports and rewards expression of compassion and the behaviors and practices through which it is enacted (standardization and customization) and its effects on efficiently reducing suffering and delivering high quality care.

This paper uses a conceptual approach that synthesizes the literature in health services, HR management, organizational behavior and service operations to develop a new conceptual model.

The paper makes three key contributions. First, the authors theorize the central importance of compassion and a collective commitment to compassion (compassion system) to reducing pervasive patient and care provider suffering in health care. Second, the authors develop a model of an organizational compassion system that details its antecedents of leader behaviors and values as well as a compassionate HR bundle. Third, the authors theorize how compassion climate enhances collective employee well-being and increases standardization and customization behaviors that reduce suffering through more efficient and higher quality care, respectively.

This paper develops a novel model of how health care organizations can simultaneously achieve efficiency and quality through a compassion system. Specific leader behaviors and practices that enable compassion climate and the processes through which it achieves efficiency and quality are detailed. Future directions for how other service organizations can replicate a compassion system are discussed.

This paper studies current trends in the teaching of operations management. Research questions focus on how well operations management curriculum in American business schools match employers’ perceptions of required skills. Through surveys of both universities and business firms, we assess the value of general skills such as communication, team building and mathematical modeling. We also assess the importance to employers of incorporating specific computer‐based applications into the curriculum, and well as the value of building stronger management information system (MIS) skills in operation management majors.

The purpose of this study is to explore the use of patient safety initiatives (PSIs) at the US hospitals. These PSIs include such approaches as open discussion of errors, education and training, and system redesign. In particular, the paper seeks to examine factors that influence the implementation of PSIs as well as the benefits realized from their implementation.

The paper draws on the TQM and medical safety literatures to develop a conceptual framework for improving patient safety. Extensive survey data were gathered from 252 hospitals throughout the US to test McFadden et al.'s model of the factors influencing successful implementation of PSIs.

Certain barriers (lack of top management support, lack of resources, lack of incentives and lack of knowledge) significantly impeded implementation while other factors (perceived importance of PSIs) facilitated implementation. It was also found that implementation of PSIs was associated with benefits to the hospital in areas such as medical error reduction, cost reduction, and patient satisfaction.

The use of a single respondent represents a possible limitation. Future research will explore organizational culture and its relationship to patient safety.

The findings provide direction for implementing more effective PSIs at hospitals.

The paper contributes to the literature on patient safety and medical errors by testing specific mechanisms that are associated with successful implementation of PSIs.

Healthcare organizations have addressed current error issues by adopting quality programs, which usually include strategic human resource management (HRM). However, little research has focused on the determinants of successful quality programs at healthcare organizations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the centrality of strategic HRM for addressing healthcare errors, error reduction barriers, quality management processes and practices, quality program results, and competitive advantage.

The methodology of this study involves the analysis of questionnaire data from the quality and/or risk directors of 587 US hospitals by factor analysis and regression analysis.

The findings focus on highly statistically significant relationships of strategic HRM with antecedent healthcare error sources, error reduction barriers, and quality management processes and practices, as well as the strategic HRM consequences of perceived quality program results and sustainable competitive advantage.

The limitations of perceptual data and common method variance are checked. Future research could investigate international effects.

The practical implications are that hospital errors can be successfully addressed with effective strategic HRM, quality management processes, and quality management practices.

The original contribution of this paper is the centrality of strategic HRM as a determinant of successful quality programs at healthcare organizations.

Rapidly rising healthcare costs, partially due to preventable medical errors, have led hospitals to redouble their process improvement (PI) efforts. The purpose of this paper is to examine how PI initiatives mediate the effect of medical error sources to enhance three hospital outcomes (patient safety, operational effectiveness, and competitiveness).

Drawing from Dynamic Capabilities Theory, the authors develop a framework to explore three PI initiatives: Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI), Six Sigma Initiatives (SSI), and Lean Management Initiatives (LMI). Hierarchical regression analysis is employed to test the proposed model, using data from a nationwide survey of 210 US hospitals.

For enhancing patient safety outcomes, it was found that CQI and LMI were significant in mediating hospital error sources; however, SSI was not significant after accounting for the other two PI types. For improving organizational effectiveness, CQI and SSI were significant; whereas LMI was not significant over and above the other two PI types. Finally, only SSI was significant for superior sustainable competitive advantage.

The paper provides insight into which PI initiatives were most effective for various hospital outcomes. The findings can benefit healthcare practitioners as they select among different PI programs for enhancing healthcare results. Limitations of the study include the use of perceptual measures, relatively small sample size, and potential alternate relationships relevant to the outcome variables.

This is the first study to explore the mediating effects of three PI programs for the impact of medical errors on each of three hospital outcomes.

In preparation for health care reform, many hospitals are contemplating redesigning their physical facilities and altering patient care policies. Uses a large Texas hospital as the subject of this study which was considering implementing policy changes in obstetric patient care along with constructing labour, delivery, recovery room suites. Uses simulation models based on Markovian patient movement to analyse whether their proposed changes will improve overall operational efficiency. The existing as well as proposed obstetric patient movement systems were developed and comparisons made based on average length of stay and total per‐patient cost to the hospital. The quantitative models proved useful in improving decision making with regard to the alternatives. Argues that the methodology can be extended to other hospitals who seek to streamline patient movement to enhance efficiency and patient convenience.

Literature reviews are a pervasive aspect in research. An ever mounting field such as Lean Six Sigma requires a perpetual touch on the subject to accentuate insights that can be researched about. The purpose of this paper is to address the published literatures in the field of Lean Six Sigma through multiple criterion for an enhanced understanding of the subject matter through summarizing its current trends, uncovering existing literature gaps and revealing opportunities for future research in the field.

The literature review on Lean Six Sigma field spans around 17 years that includes peer-reviewed journals from management, business, engineering, healthcare, manufacturing, military among the many disciplines. The study uses a content analysis approach in which several dimensions of the literature were analysed: purpose or focus of study, years of publication, journal name or publications, methodologies, theories used, country of study, industry sub-sectors, active authors in the field, critical success factors, barriers and challenges and the most contribution of Lean Six Sigma papers by universities.

Eleven important findings from the analysis were summarized among them; the field of Lean Six Sigma had begun to grow significantly since the new millennium particularly after the 2004-2007 or 2008 period; standalone concepts of Lean and Six Sigma are highly researched compared to the integrated concepts; large proportion of perspective, conceptual and descriptive based studies; lack of empirical validity on the fusion between Lean and Six Sigma; lack of theoretical based studies, etc.

The study is limited to 102 journals in commonly searched databases in the subject matter which produced 261 journal papers. This study seeks to broaden the summary of studies done under the keyword “Lean Six Sigma”.

The review analysis uses a content analysis approach in search of valuable gaps in existing research. The study found 261 papers from 102 journals that were published over the past seventeen years (2000-2016). This paper provides scholars, practitioners and managers with insights on the present trends and focus of Lean Six Sigma in addition to what else are lacking in the subject matter, which could pave the way for future research and practical endeavours.

The unprecedented exigencies of COVID-19 and the subsequent spotlight on systemic racial, social and economic disparities have brought workplace equity to the forefront of organizational dialogue. These discontinuities set the stage for discussions about possible limitations of traditional diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) approaches that may have overlooked disparities in specific organizational systems. In response, we conducted an exploratory study to examine a new framework that focuses attention on the equity of employment systems that contextualize employees’ experiences of equity at the workplace.

This paper introduces a framework that focuses on the equity of ten key employment systems (job structures, compensation and benefits, recruitment and hiring, orientation and onboarding, supervision and mentoring, training and career development, employee performance assessment and feedback, employee resources and supports, promotion and separation). Combining the indices that measured the equity of these ten employment systems, we created an Overall Equity of Employment Systems Index and examined antecedent variables and outcomes related to the index. Data were gathered from HR leaders of 1,062 workplaces in the US.

Utilizing multivariate analyses, this research found that lower scores on the Organizational Pressures Index were consistently linked to higher levels of equity across all of the employment systems. Furthermore, higher percentages of women and employees of color were positively associated with increased equity in most of the employment systems and in the Overall Equity of Employment System Index. There was a significant positive relationship between the Overall Equity of Employment Systems Index and organizational resilience, while a negative relationship was observed with employee stress.

This study extends the existing DEI literature by offering a new framework that employers can use to: (1) assess the equity of specific employment systems and (2) strengthen the equity components of the employment systems.

The framework used for this exploratory study offers an alternative approach to the study of systemic equity in the workplace.