An intelligent algorithm for assessing patient safety culture and adverse events voluntary reporting using PCA and ANFIS.

BACKGROUND: Patient safety culture (PSC) as a main component of the organizational culture plays a key role in providing safe, effective and economic cares and services in healthcare organizations. PSC provides a way to assist hospitals in order to improve patient safety and prevent medical errors. OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to measure PSC and healthcare professionals' attitude towards voluntary reporting of adverse events in two hospitals in Iran and to develop a hybrid intelligent approach for modeling PSC grades. METHODS: The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) questionnaire and a two-part questionnaire were used for examining the PSC and healthcare professionals' attitude towards voluntary reporting of adverse events, respectively. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to extract of the main components in the HSOPSC questionnaire and to construct 12 dimensions of patient safety culture. The overall grade of patient safety culture was modeled using adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) as a classification problem. RESULTS: Almost half of the participants have experienced a medical error and adverse events. The PSC grade was acceptable from the point of view of 55.5% and 50% of participants in hospital No.1 and hospital No.2, respectively. The overall accuracy of ANFIS in modeling overall grades of patient safety culture in both study hospitals was 0.84. Of those individuals gave an acceptable grade on patient safety culture in both study hospitals, more than 50% believed that all medical errors and near misses should be reported. CONCLUSIONS: The ANFIS algorithm was proposed for modeling and predicting of PSC for healthcare organizations. The results confirm the capability of the proposed model to predict patient safety grades in healthcare settings.

Dynamic safety assessment of natural gas stations using Bayesian network.

Pipelines are one of the most popular and effective ways of transporting hazardous materials, especially natural gas. However, the rapid development of gas pipelines and stations in urban areas has introduced a serious threat to public safety and assets. Although different methods have been developed for risk analysis of gas transportation systems, a comprehensive methodology for risk analysis is still lacking, especially in natural gas stations. The present work is aimed at developing a dynamic and comprehensive quantitative risk analysis (DCQRA) approach for accident scenario and risk modeling of natural gas stations. In this approach, a FMEA is used for hazard analysis while a Bow-tie diagram and Bayesian network are employed to model the worst-case accident scenario and to assess the risks. The results have indicated that the failure of the regulator system was the worst-case accident scenario with the human error as the most contributing factor. Thus, in risk management plan of natural gas stations, priority should be given to the most probable root events and main contribution factors, which have identified in the present study, in order to reduce the occurrence probability of the accident scenarios and thus alleviate the risks.

Association between overuse of mobile phones on quality of sleep and general health among occupational health and safety students.

Concerns about health problems due to the increasing use of mobile phones are growing. Excessive use of mobile phones can affect the quality of sleep as one of the important issues in the health literature and general health of people. Therefore, this study investigated the relationship between the excessive use of mobile phones and general health and quality of sleep on 450 Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) students in five universities of medical sciences in the North East of Iran in 2014. To achieve this objective, special questionnaires that included Cell Phone Overuse Scale, Pittsburgh's Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) were used, respectively. In addition to descriptive statistical methods, independent t-test, Pearson correlation, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression tests were performed. The results revealed that half of the students had a poor level of sleep quality and most of them were considered unhealthy. The Pearson correlation co-efficient indicated a significant association between the excessive use of mobile phones and the total score of general health and the quality of sleep. In addition, the results of the multiple regression showed that the excessive use of mobile phones has a significant relationship between each of the four subscales of general health and the quality of sleep. Furthermore, the results of the multivariate regression indicated that the quality of sleep has a simultaneous effect on each of the four scales of the general health. Overall, a simultaneous study of the effects of the mobile phones on the quality of sleep and the general health could be considered as a trigger to employ some intervention programs to improve their general health status, quality of sleep and consequently educational performance.

Surprising Incentive: An Instrument for Promoting Safety Performance of Construction Employees.

BACKGROUND: In comparison with other industries, the construction industry still has a higher rate of fatal injuries, and thus, there is a need to apply new and innovative approaches for preventing accidents and promoting safe conditions at construction sites. METHODS: In this study, the effectiveness of a new incentive system-the surprising incentive system-was assessed. One year after the implementation of this new incentive system, behavioral changes of employees with respect to seven types of activities were observed. RESULTS: The results of this study showed that there is a significant relationship between the new incentive system and the safety performance of frontline employees. The new incentive system had a greater positive impact in the first 6 months since its implementation. In the long term, however, safety performance experienced a gradual reduction. Based on previous studies, all activities selected in this study are important indicators of the safety conditions at workplaces. However, there is a need for a comprehensive and simple-to-apply tool for assessing frontline employees' safety performance. Shortening the intervals between incentives is more effective in promoting safety performance. CONCLUSION: The results of this study proved that the surprising incentive would improve the employees' safety performance just in the short term because the surprising value of the incentives dwindle over time. For this reason and to maintain the surprising value of the incentive system, the amount and types of incentives need to be evaluated and modified annually or biannually.