Hospital Culture report shows gains, areas for improvement

In more news from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) this week, a snapshot of the nation’s culture of safety at hospitals shows some positive strides as well as room for improvement. The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture: 2010 User Comparative Database Report was released yesterday, providing interested parties the chance to compare their own hospital’s culture with facilities around the nation who administer the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture. This survey poses a series of questions to staff about their perceptions of the culture at their institution around the following domains:

1. Communication openness
2. Feedback and communication about error
3. Frequency of events reported
4. Handoffs and transitions
5. Management support for patient safety
6. Nonpunitive response to error
7. Organizational learning–continuous improvement
8. Overall perceptions of patient safety
9. Staffing
10. Supervisor/manager expectations and actions promoting safety
11. Teamwork across units
12. Teamwork within units

The 2010 report pulls together survey responses from 885 hospitals, representing 338,607 respondents. Of the 885 hospitals, 321 have already submitted data in previous years, and can observe their own trends within the report.  The report has been released annually since 2007. The actual survey was created in 2004 to help hospitals measure their own cultures of safety and attitudes about patient safety.

The three most positively rated areas included in the report are teamwork within units, supervisor/manager expectations and actions promoting patient safety, and the overall patient safety grade of the unit or hospital (mostly As and Bs). The three areas with the largest potential for  improvement nonpunitive response to error, handoffs and transitions, and number of events reported (most staff said they did not report any events).

You can find a link to the  full report here. It breaks out many different characteristics of survey respondents, like facility size, location, teaching status, and even by specific work units within hospitals.

Does your hospital use the AHRQ Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture to assess perceptions surrounding patient safety at your facility? Do you use another tool? No tool at all? I think this report is a helpful snapshot, but it using this information for improvement is really in the hands of hospitals themselves. There is a “recommendations” section at the end of the report for analyzing survey results, which could help guide hospitals.