The Relationship Between Employee Satisfaction Surveys and the Numbers of Work Related Injuries in a Hospital System

Purpose:
To explore the relationship between employees' satisfaction surveys related to patient safety and the numbers of work related injuries in a hospital system in the Midwest region.

Background/Significance:
To understand how employee satisfaction on patient safety and injury rates is related, an empirical study in a hospital system in the Midwest region was conducted. The system included three hospitals; A, B, and C.

Methods:
The incident rates (I.R.) of each hospital were compared with the national rates from Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).In addition, the relationship of the employee satisfaction on patient safety and the incident rates at each hospital were also compared. The data routinely collected by hospitals (between 2007~2009) using the Survey on Patient Safety Culture (SPSC) was used. OSHA 300 injury and illness recordkeeping forms were collected from the three hospitals between 2007~2009. IR were calculated using the OSHA incident rate calculator formula that addresses the total number of injuries& illnesses divided by the numbers of hours worked by all employees x 200,000.

Results:
In 2007: IR Rates for hospitals A & B below national average. In 2008: IR at all three hospitals were below the national average. In 2009: IR at hospitals B and C were above the national average. The Incident Rates are not solely factored into the job satisfaction of the employees. In this study, Hospital C revealed a high Survey on Patient Safety Culture (SPSC) as well as high Incident Rates.

Conclusions and Implications for Practice:
Safety of patients and employees is an integral part of all healthcare systems. Observations found in this study indicated that high incident rates are not necessarily related to low job satisfaction among hospital workers.