Abstract:

In order to gain the advantage in the intensively competitive private health care environment the most important issue for hospitals to make their achievements sustainable and create a positive image is patient safety. Patient safety is indispensable in the provision of a productive and qualified health service and it plays an important role that can be defined as keystone in ensuring patient satisfaction. Patient safety applications are part of the implementation of total quality management (TQM) in hospitals. For TQM to have meaning and gain value is possible with leadership. It is accepted that TQM is a quality revolution. Accordingly, transformational leadership is one of the most appropriate styles of leadership that is required for the success of total quality management and thus for patient safety. In the light of the opinions mentioned above, the mission of the study is to draw attention to the implementation of patient safety measures which although are not sufficiently understood have begun to gain ground in Turkey and to increase the level of awareness of patient safety in the shareholders in the health care sector. In this context, the main objective of the study is "to measure the effect of transformational leadership on patient safety applications via the opinions of nurses". The population of the study comprises of the nurses working in hospitals of the Ministry of Health in Malatya City center, Turkey. The sampling covers 198 nurses chosen randomly. The raw data obtained from the questionnaire was subjected to statistical analysis by means of an SPSS program. It was observed that study findings supported the literature. The basic hypothesis of the study suggesting that "there is a positive relationship between the level of transformational leadership of the organization and increased patient safety" was verified.

Keywords: