Background and Significance
Improving patient safety is a priority for healthcare organizations in response to
increased public concern regarding patient safety in hospitals, and according to a recent
Institute of Medicine (2004) report, nurses play an essential role in keeping patients safe
(Begun, Tornabeni, & White, 2006; American Association of College of Nurses, 2003).
To this end, there is a renewed focus on leadership at the clinical level and nursing
leadership at all levels in the organization is critical to creating safe healthcare
organizations (De Groot, 2005).