In 2004, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) released the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture, a staff survey designed to help hospitals assess the culture of safety in their institutions. Since then, hundreds of hospitals across the U.S. and internationally have implemented the survey.
In response to requests from hospitals interested in comparing their safety culture survey results to other hospitals, AHRQ funded the development of a comparative database on the survey in 2006. The database is comprised of voluntarily submitted data from U.S. hospitals that administered the survey. Comparative database reports were produced in 2007 and 2008, and will be produced yearly through at least 2012.
Hospital Survey Toolkit
Frequently Asked Questions
Survey Form
Survey User's Guide
The User's Guide provides a general overview of the issues and major decisions involved in conducting a survey and reporting the results. The Guide includes information on getting started, selecting a sample, determining data collection methods, establishing data collection procedures, conducting a Web-based survey, and preparing and analyzing data, and producing reports.
Survey Feedback Report Template
Comparative Database
AHRQ has established the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture Comparative Database as a central repository for survey data from hospitals that have administered the AHRQ patient safety culture survey instrument. The database serves as an important resource for hospitals wishing to compare their patient safety culture survey results to those of other hospitals in support of patient safety culture improvement.
- Submission Information—For hospitals interested in submitting their hospital patient safety culture survey data.
- Data Use Agreement (PDF File, 145 KB; PDF Help)—States how data submitted by hospitals will be used and provides confidentiality assurances.
- 2009 Comparative Database Report—The 2009 report is an update of the 2008 and 2008 reports and consists of data from over 600 hospitals. The 2009 report also presents results showing change over time for 204 hospitals that submitted data more than once. The report consists of a narrative description of the findings and four appendixes, presenting data by hospital characteristics and respondent characteristics for the database hospitals overall and separately for the 204 trending hospitals.
- 2008 Comparative Database Report—The 2008 report is an update of the 2007 report and consists of data from a total of 519 hospitals and 160,176 hospital staff respondents. The report consists of a narrative description of the findings and two appendixes, presenting data by hospital characteristics and respondent characteristics. The 2008 report includes trending data for the first time for 98 hospitals that submitted data from their previous and most recent safety culture surveys.
- 2007 Comparative Database Report—The 2007 report contains comparative results on 108,621 hospital staff respondents from 382 participating hospitals that administered the AHRQ Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture. In the appendixes, the results are broken down by hospital characteristics (bed size, teaching status, ownership and control, region) and respondent characteristics (hospital work area/unit, staff position, interaction with patients).
Data Entry and Analysis Tool
This data entry and analysis tool works with Microsoft® Excel® and makes it easy to input your individual-level data from the survey. The tool then automatically creates tables and graphs to display your survey results. To request the tool, send an E-mail to: databasesonsafetyculture@ahrq.hhs.gov.
Current as of March 2009
Internet Citation:
Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture. March 2009. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/patientsafetyculture/hospsurvindex.htm
540 Gaither Road Rockville, MD 20850