I am at Central Louisiana State Hospital in Pineville, LA.
We have recently concluded a Culture of Safety Survey using the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture developed and standardized by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) [http://www.ahrq.gov] of the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services. The protocol is fairly straight-forward, and easy for just about all staff to comprehend and respond to. The manual provides essentially all the information one needs for administration, scoring, and interpretation. There is a software package, which is compatible with Excel for entering, aggregating, and providing a descriptive analysis of the results. All of this is free and accessible via the the Web link noted above.
Mark - Sorry I missed you during my last visit, but I did get to see a bit of your survey results. Looking good. Have you made any use of the comparison data base that AHRQ also offers? How did staff react to it? Did they find it easy, hard? What level of response did you get?
PS: For other readers, below is an earlier review from our Dec 2008 RTP of the TJC article that actually recommended the AHRQ tool that Mark is using.
Source Dec 08 Vol 6 #12 Pg04- Evaluating Your Culture of Safety—Knowing and Growing: Compliance Strategies and Tips for Standard LD.03.01.01 [**REF**] LDR, PI and JCSC should note that "at least a baseline cultural evaluation" is to be completed by 1/1/09. Previously, TJC had avoided identifying 'valid and reliable tools' for performing cultural assessment. [Pearl] However, in this article they reveal the following two, free tools that will apparently meet their requirements: 1. Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research: AHQR Patient Safety Culture Surveys. (accessed Oct. 20, 2008). 2. Sexton J. B., et al.: The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire: Psychometric properties, benchmarking data, and emerging research. BMC Health Serv Res 6:44, Apr. 2006
All of the Alabama state hospitals are utilizing the AHQR Patient Safety Culture Survey tool (based on a recommendation from our state wide PI Committee and Governing Body). All of our facilities are using the comparison data base offered by AHRQ. While each hospital is looking at their data we (Central OFffice) are collecting and looking at the data from each facilty to look for potential system processes that could be improved.
I think all of our hospitals have been satisfied with the AHRQ tool. Of course each hospital has had varying levels of participation but overall has been pleased with staff participation. If fact one of our hospitals has just redistributed the tool as a 6 month follow-up to gauge staff response to changes that were implemented as a result of their inital survey findings.
