Workplace safety became more apparent during the COVID pandemic as an essential component to support effective and safe care provision. This session introduced the AHRQ Workplace Safety Supplemental Item Set for use with the Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) Nursing Home Survey that examines staff perceptions of workplace safety. Background on the importance of workplace safety in nursing homes, results from a pilot test in 48 nursing homes, and one organization’s experience with the survey were shared.

Patients face risks when undergoing surgery. This revised guidance provides recommendations developed by multidisciplinary consensus and outlines how organizations can implement the standards to improve safety of invasive procedures. The report is centered on areas of effort targeting both organizational and process-level actions. 

The AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) Hospital Survey and accompanying toolkit were developed to collect opinions of hospital staff on the safety culture at their organizations. An accompanying database serves as a central repository for hospitals to report their results. Participating hospitals will be able to measure patient safety culture in their institutions and compare results with other sites. Data collection for the latest submission period is closed.

Culture has been described as a key to establishing high reliability organizations. The National Quality Forum's Safe Practices for Healthcare and the Leapfrog Group both mandate hospitals to regularly assess their safety culture. This AHRQ Web site provides validated safety culture survey tools (Hospital, Medical Office, Nursing Home, Community Pharmacy, Ambulatory Surgery Center) and user guides health care organizations can use to implement the surveys. Organizations can also use the AHRQ database to compare their Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) results. In addition, reports are available that summarize the benchmarking data across cohorts nationwide. An AHRQ WebM&M perspective discussed how to establish a safety culture.

This report summarizes patient safety improvement work in the state of Pennsylvania and reviews the 2021 activities of the Patient Safety Authority, including the Agency's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, video programs, liaison efforts, publication programs, and the launch of a new learning management system.

Assessment can identify the current state of a process or program to reveal areas of weakness and inform improvement implementation efforts. This scenario-based tool focuses on 10 areas of an organization’s journey to support diagnostic safety.

The perioperative setting is a high-risk area for medication errors, should they occur. This assessment provides hospitals and outpatient surgical providers a tool to examine their medication use processes and share data nationwide for comparison. Organizational participation can identify strengths and gaps in their systems to design opportunities that prevent patient harm. 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) provides consumers with publicly available information on the quality of Medicare-certified hospital care through this Web site. The site includes specific information for both patients and hospitals on how to use the data to guide decision-making and improvement initiatives. Most recently, listings from the Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program (HACRP) and data on Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals were added to the reports available.