The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awarded UNC Kenan-Flagler management professor David Hofmann a grant of $67,319 to study error management and organizational learning to improve nursing care. Hofmann will conduct the study with Zhike Lei, a UNC Kenan-Flagler PhD student.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., is the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care.

Hofmann will investigate error management by analyzing who nurses turn to after making a mistake or when trying to diagnose a complex problem.

"From an organizational standpoint, knowing more about the management of errors — who nurses turn to for help, why they turn to those individuals, who nurses do not turn to for help — is critical for both organizational learning and the reduction of medical error," Hofmann says. "There have been numerous calls for improving safety in health care systems via error prevention strategies. There has been less focus on error management strategies and how this occurs in real time immediately after the occurrence of an error."

Hofmann’s broader research interests include leadership; organizational climate, culture and change; health and safety; and the process through which individual errors are managed (or not) within teams and organizations. He teaches courses in organizational behavior and leadership in UNC Kenan-Flagler’s MBA, PhD and Executive Education programs.

Hofmann recently was named a fellow by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, which acknowledged that "his focus on safety in the context of leadership and climate has contributed to a paradigm shift in how we conceptualize workplace safety."

For information on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, visit http://www.rwjf.org/index.jsp.