AHRQ Patient Safety Network

Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture: 2010 User Comparative Database Report.

Sorra J, Famolaro T, Dyer N, Nelson D, Khanna K. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; March 2010. AHRQ Publication No. 10-0026.

The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture, a validated tool for measurement of safety culture developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), was initially released in 2004. AHRQ has released database reports yearly since 2007 that present benchmarking data for safety culture across different regions, hospital types, hospital size, respondent work areas, and staff positions. This edition presents data from more than 300,000 respondents and greater than 800 hospitals nationwide, and also includes data on changes in safety culture perception over time for a subset of hospitals. Notable findings include widespread concern about a persistent culture of individual blame when errors occur, and concern about the safety of handoffs.

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