Purpose: For many years, the concept of safety culture has attracted researchers from all over the world, and more particularly in the area of healthcare services. The purpose of this paper is to measure safety culture dimensions in order to improve and promote healthcare in Algeria. Design/methodology/approach: The used approach consists of getting a better understanding of healthcare safety culture (HSC) by measuring the perception of healthcare professionals in order to guide promotion actions. For this, the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture questionnaire was used in a pilot hospital setting where it was distributed on a number of 114 health professionals chosen by stratified random sampling. Findings: The results showed that the identified priority areas for HSC improvement help in establishing a trust culture and a non-punitive environment based on the system and not on the individual. Originality/value: Safety is recognized as a key aspect of service quality, thus measuring the HSC can help establish an improvement plan. In Algerian health facilities, this study is considered the first to examine perceptions in this particular area. The current results provide a baseline of strengths and opportunities for healthcare safety improvement, allowing the managers of this type of facilities to take steps that are more effective.

Purpose: The assessment of patient safety culture (PSC) is a major priority for healthcare providers. It is often realized using quantitative approaches (questionnaires) separately from qualitative ones (patient safety culture maturity model (PSCMM)). These approaches suffer from certain major limits. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to overcome these limits and to propose a novel approach to PSC assessment.Design/methodology/approach: The proposed approach consists of evaluating PSC in a set of healthcare establishments (HEs) using the HSOPSC questionnaire. After that, principal component analysis (PCA) and K-means algorithm were applied on PSC dimensional scores in order to aggregate them into macro dimensions. The latter were used to overcome the limits of PSC dimensional assessment and to propose a quantitative PSCMM.Findings: PSC dimensions are grouped into three macro dimensions. Their capitalization permits their association with safety actors related to PSC promotion. Consequently, a quantitative PSC maturity matrix was proposed. Problematic PSC dimensions for the studied HEs are “Non-punitive response to error”, “Staffing”, “Communication openness”. Their PSC maturity level was found underdeveloped due to a managerial style that favors a “blame culture”.Originality/value: A combined quali-quantitative assessment framework for PSC was proposed in the present study as recommended by a number of researchers but, to the best of our knowledge, few or no studies were devoted to it. The results can be projected for improvement and accreditation purposes, where different PSC stakeholders can be implicated as suggested by international standards.

Background: A positive Patient Safety Culture (PSC) is considered as the main barrier to adverse events (AEs) that affect healthcare quality and safety. Thus, the assessment of PSC became a priority for healthcare providers in order to identify problematic areas that need improvement actions. Method: A cross sectional multi-center study was conducted to evaluate quantitatively PSC in 10 Algerian healthcare establishments (HEs) within the framework of the Algerian Observatory of Safety Culture (ASCO Project). The French version of the HSOPSC was used as a measurement tool where it was administered to participants (N = 1370) using convenience sampling. Results: A total of 1118 respondents, all professional categories included, participated in this study. The response rate was estimated at 69% of the sample size (N = 1370). After statistical processing, 950 questionnaires were retained. Internal consistency was above 0.7 for all dimensions. Problematic PSC dimensions were identified, mainly 'Non-punitive response to error', 'Staffing' and 'Communication openness'. Conclusions: This article sheds light on the critical situation of PSC in the Algerian national health system. Quantitative findings were introduced in the framework of the Algerian Safety Culture Observatory project that will serve as a baseline for different stakeholders to guide long-term promotion actions.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to assess the dispersion of gas flaring (GF) emissions in the Hassi R'mel field, Algeria, through a diachronic analysis covering the 2018–2022 period. The objective is to characterize the temporal evolution and spatial extent of pollutant plumes. Design/methodology/approach: The Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model was used to simulate the dispersion of GF pollutants over a 72-hour period for four representative seasonal scenarios per year. Simulations were initialized using meteorological data from the NOAA Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) at a 1° spatial resolution. Findings: Results reveal summer and spring conditions produce the largest plume extensions. In contrast, winter stability limits plume development and promotes pollutant accumulation near the source. These simulations confirm that GF pollutants from Hassi R'mel frequently extend beyond national borders, influencing air quality over eastern Algeria and the Mediterranean basin. Originality/value: This study represents the first diachronic modeling assessment of gas flaring dispersion in Algeria's desert environment. It enables a consistent year to year comparison of plume footprint and demonstrates that seasonal meteorology exerts stronger control on transport extent than interannual variability in flaring volumes. This provides a decision-relevant basis for prioritizing mitigation strategies and for framing progress toward Zero Routine Flaring by 2030.

Patient safety culture (PSC) is a linked to improved organizational performances and fewer adverse events in healthcare. Mainly, PSC is assessed using self-administered questionnaires that define PSC through a number of dimensions. Nevertheless, the latter suffers from a major limit that is dimensional scores aggregation to obtain PSC overall level. To overcome this constraint, the proposed approach consists of applying unsupervised clustering algorithms (i.e. K-means & HAC) to group HEs sharing similar PSC profiles. This approach was applied on PSC assessment data in 10 Algerian pubic HEs. Results showed that HEs can be grouped into 3 clusters having different PSC profiles. The proposed approach has the merit of guiding decision makers to propose adapted improvement actions based on shared inter and intra cluster problematic PSC dimensions.