Assessing system safety

About the project

This PhD research focuses on evaluating safety within 'high-risk' organizations. For these organsiations safety is an imperative; and they therefore actively and continously engage with the topic. Furthermore, it is essential for them to regularly examine how they are doing,  by measuring the 'state of safety' in some way. Traditionally, high-risk organisations tend to focus on safety outcomes; such as accident rates in industry or adverse events in healthcare.

However a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of safety can not  be achieved by only looking at safety outcomes. We anticipate that other measures, often called 'leading safety indicators', can offer important additional insights for companies. With this additional understanding, healthcare organisations can  better understand what is needed to improve.

This research therefore delves into different theoretical and practical approaches to formulate leading safety indicators. We concentrate on modern (safety)modelling techniques and on testing these techniques in healthcare.