AHRQ Survey on Patient Safety Culture

To prevent adverse events from occurring, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality recommends you measure your patient safety culture and work with a federally designated Patient Safety Organization (PSO), like the Center for Patient Safety. Read on to find out more about the Survey on Patient Safety Culture, or find out more about PSOs.

Why Conduct the Survey on Patient Safety Culture?

The safety culture survey provides feedback on your organization’s communication, teamwork, patient safety, leadership, and staff engagement.  The results can be used to measure your current culture AND…

  • improve patient safety
  • increase error reporting to learn and reduce future errors
  • increase employee/staff satisfaction
  • increase patient satisfaction
  • improve organizational marketability
  • improve financial stability
  • reduce liability exposure
  • reduce staff turnover
  • reduce liability insurance
  • improve organizational sustainability

The safety culture of an organization is the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behavior that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organization’s health and safety management.
Organizations with a positive safety culture are characterized by communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety, and by confidence in the efficacy of preventative measures.

Organising for Safety: Third Report of the ACSNI (Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations) Study Group on Human Factors.
Health and Safety Commission (of Great Britain). Sudbury, England: HSE Books, 1993.

 

Other Available Tools to Measure Safety Culture

The survey on patient safety culture is one tool, but other methods and measures should be used in conjunction with the survey to attain the greatest level of benefit.  Consider using:

  • focus groups
  • interviews and observations
  • unit level turnover reports
  • patient satisfaction reports
  • employee satisfaction reports
  • data from an internal event reporting system
  • medical record reviews
  • root cause analyses

 

Why the AHRQ Survey on Patient Safety Culture?

The AHRQ surveys have been exhaustively studied and determined to include quantitative dimension- and item-measurement that is overall psychometrically sound to assess patient safety culture.

Administered in 30 countries and translated into 18 languages, the AHRQ patient safety culture surveys are widespread in use and exists – demonstrating strong acceptance in the healthcare provider community.

AHRQ maintains a national benchmarking database, allowing organizations to see their organization compared to the rest of the database.

 

Center Involvement

The Center for Patient Safety fully supports this diagnostic tool. 

In early 2011, the Center began offering the hospital survey with services to complement our internal programs, initiatives, and collaboratives with hospitals.   We quickly recognized the power of providing results of unit-level survey responses to hospitals in order to better assess the culture at the unit-level.  We proceeded in expanding the survey capabilities beyond the AHRQ limited department selections and now offer customizable services to hospitals to report at the system, region, facility, and/or unit levels.

In 2012, the Center added survey offerings for the Medical Staff Office Survey on Patient Safety Culture.

With increasing awareness and interest in our services, in 2013, the Center is expanding to also include the Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture and the Pharmacy Survey on Patient Safety Culture.

 

Find out how the Center can help you administer the Survey On Patient Safety (SOPS) at your location:

 

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