Just culture
Patient Safety
Definition. Just culture is an approach to safety that distinguishes blameless human error from at-risk and reckless behaviour, so that staff can report errors without fear while accountability is preserved.
Explanation
Dekker describes just culture as a balance between learning and accountability in which the organisation asks what went wrong in the system before asking who is to blame (Dekker, 2007). Human error is consoled, at-risk behaviour is coached, and only reckless behaviour is sanctioned.
Just culture supports incident reporting and psychological safety. Without it, reporting systems capture little and organisations repeat the same failures.
Related concepts
Patient safety culture Psychological safety Incident reporting system Second victim Medical error
References
Dekker, S. (2007). Just culture: Balancing safety and accountability. Ashgate.
Cite this entry: Kurutkan, M. N. (2026). Just culture. In The Health Topics glossary. https://healthtopic.org/glossary/just-culture/