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How does culture impact high-reliability?

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So when you look at high-reliability in a healthcare system, people will generally think of processes, procedures, and technology as a solutions to improve high-reliability. While it is definitely a part of the equation, they solely cannot be the solution. There is a people component to the high-reliability systems, that usually gets de-prioritized or not considered as much of the equation for high-reliability. We claim that people are the biggest part of that equation for a system. So when you focus on the culture of an organization, you're able to influence the behaviors and mindsets of your employees and staff, which has a huge impact on high-reliability. This is because culture allows your employees to feel valued, respected, engaged, and bring their full selves to work that leads to a psychologically safe environment for them to demonstrate high-reliability behaviors without the fear of consequences or repercussions. The same people and staff are then responsible for instituting processes, technology, and technology decisions that lead to better safety outcomes. Imagine if people are unable to operate at the highest levels in a psychologically safe environment, and share ideas and or approach problems with the right behaviors and mindsets. We would have had better processes and technology implementations or if they don't have that safe environment, and you're not able to operate by bringing their full selves, then you would have had inefficient and ineffective solutions. So when you're able to build the right culture and expectations of behaviors for employees and staff, you're able to inherently create a better and more effective high reliability environment and systems for your healthcare organization.

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