Survey helps measure hospitals' safety culture

HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement, Jan, 2005

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has unveiled a new tool to help hospitals and health systems evaluate employee attitudes about patient safety in their facilities or within specific units.

The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture, released in partnership with Premier Inc. (with offices in San Diego; Charlotte, NC; Oak Brook, IL; and Washington, DC), the Department of Defense, and the American Hospital Association, addresses a critical aspect of patient safety improvement: measuring organizational conditions that can lead to adverse events and patient harm.

Assessments of patient safety culture typically include an evaluation of a variety of organizational factors that have an impact on patient safety, including awareness about safety issues, evaluating specific patient safety interventions, tracking changes in patient safety over time, setting internal and external benchmarks, and fulfilling regulatory requirements or other directives.

The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture includes the survey guide, the survey, as well as a feedback report template in which hospitals can enter their data to produce customized feedback reports for hospital management and staff. These items provide hospitals with the basic knowledge and tools needed to conduct a safety culture assessment and suggestions about how to use the data.

The survey was pilot tested with more than 1,400 hospital employees from 21 hospitals in the United States to ensure that the items were easily understood and relevant to patient safety in a hospital.

To ensure widespread awareness and use of the survey, AHRQ and its partners will host a toll-free audioconference this month to help health professionals adopt and use the survey. Details on the audio conference will be made available on the AHRQ web site and AHRQ's electronic newsletter in early January.

To see the survey, go to www.ahrq.gov/qual/ hospculture/. To order printed copies, call (800) 358-9295. E-mail: ahrqpubs@ahrq.gov.