Leadership, Safety Culture, and their Role in Preventing Medical Errors

Abstract

Patient Safety Culture (PSC) refers to the collective values, beliefs, and behavioral norms within healthcare organizations that prioritize patient safety as a core operational principle. It reflects how safety is perceived, enacted, and sustained across all organizational levels, from executive leadership to frontline healthcare providers. A strong PSC fosters shared responsibility for minimizing harm and promoting safe clinical practices. It extends beyond preventing individual mistakes to creating systems that encourage learning, transparency, and continuous improvement. Importantly, PSC promotes a non-punitive environment in which healthcare professionals feel empowered to report errors and near misses without fear of blame. This approach strengthens institutional learning and risk management capacity (Macedo et al., 2020; Eliyana et al., 2020).