Der Einfluss eines anonymen Fehlermeldesystems auf das organisationale Lernen und die Häufigkeit von Behandlungsfehlern

Errors in hospitals entail high mortality rates and economic costs. While the positive effect of a good safety culture on error occurrence has been repeatedly demonstrated, there is a lack of longitudinal studies that reveal if and how safety culture can be improved. Based on the theory of knowledge conversion a concept for describing and measuring learning safety culture is developed. Applying a distinction between explicit and implicit learning, the effect of an anonymous error reporting system (CIRS) on a change in the learning safety culture and the occurrence of errors is investigated. Data has been collected with a quasi-experimental design in four hospital units with a total sample of 276 doctors and nurses and was examined via correlational and path analysis. Results show that CIRS reduces errors and leads to an improvement in explicit but not implicit learning. Implicit learning in turn has a stronger effect on the reduction of errors than explicit learning.