Abstract for: The Clinical Risk Management in a Hospital Ward: a Case-Study adopting System Dynamics Approach

During the last two decades, the issue of clinical risk management CRM became one of the key topics in the Health care sector due to the increasing attention to the patient safety and the increase in monetary and non monetary costs. This paper explore the role of hospital’s patient safety culture in the generation of medical adverse event by using system dynamics methodology. The hypothesis is that a safety culture assessment represents a tool for improving patient safety. We use system dynamics to explore the multidimensional facets of hospital’s complex structure. By using a simulation model we want to test the role that the patient safety culture has in the generation of adverse events, in order to identify the best policies able to achieve the hospital target about patients’ safety. The research was carried out in a public hospital placed in Sicily (Italy), in particular it was decided to concentrate the research in a specific operational unit: the ward of obstetrics and gynecology. We provide a summary of our findings and their empirical and theoretical implications and contributions. Suggestions about the power of system dynamics simulation model in capturing organizational behaviors are provided.