During late 2004, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) released a survey tool that would specifically access the safety culture of a hospital. Subsequently, the Culture of Safety Survey would be proprietarily utilized by the hospital, via employee perceptions, to identify areas by which patient safety concerns exist.

The Culture of Safety survey tool and database provided by JL Morgan & Associates, Inc. is designed to assist the hospital client with creating a culture in which patient safety is an innate behavior. The data provided by the Culture of Safety survey will give a realistic insight of patient safety as viewed at each departmental level within the hospital. Each hospital client will be provided with proprietary querying features, as well as with comparative benchmarking reports.

JL Morgan & Associates, Inc. is privileged to partner with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama to provide the Culture of Safety survey to all Alabama acute care hospitals during September – October 2007. Each hospital is provided with unlimited proprietary database access in order to perform data query operations as well as executing all comparative report functions.

CULTURE OF SAFETY SURVEY SPECIFICS

I. What is a Culture of Safety?

• The integration of knowledge, belief and behavior that supports an environment of patient safety.
• A culture in which everyone is accountable for patient safety.
• A culture in which people don’t merely work toward change, but actively take action when needed.
• An individual and groups values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies and patterns of behavior that determine the commitment to "Overall Patient Safety".

II. Why is the Culture of Safety an important factor?

• Culture of Safety can have the single greatest impact on patient safety.
• Creating a culture of safety will ensure that everyone feels responsible for patient safety and pursues it on a daily basis.
• Research conducted by OSHA has proven that organizations with strong safety cultures not only have fewer at-risk behaviors but also experience low accident rates, low turn-over, low absenteeism, and high productivity.

III. What is the Culture of Safety Survey Tool?

• The Culture of Safety 2007 Survey Tool is comprised of 51 questions.
• The questions are designed specifically to target safety practices within the scope of a given employees role.
• Each question prompts the employee to give candid and direct feedback regarding their personal behavior, the behavior of others within their unit, the behavior of management within their unit and behaviors exhibited when interacting with other units within the hospital.
• The employee is encouraged to provide commentary (both direct and indirect knowledge) regarding each question.
• All answers will provide a realistic picture of how patient safety is viewed within your hospital.

IV. Measuring data gather via Culture of Safety Survey Tool?

Culture of Safety 2007 Survey data is measured in eight category headings.

• Staff - How the staff of a particular unit view their work environment.
• Safety/Mistakes - How safety and mistakes are viewed within a department.
• Supervisor/Manager Regard for Patient Safety – How safety is viewed by the management staff in a particular department.
• Communication – How events are communicated in a department and the overall commitment to an open communication environment.
• Frequency of "Events Reported" - How often events/safety concerns are reported in a given unit.
• Hospital Units – How different hospital units interact with one another to support patient safety.
• Hospital Management – The perception of individuals of how management views patient safety within the hospital.
• Overall Rating of Hospital Unit/Work Area – Individual units within the hospital.

V. Culture of Safety Survey data report functions?

• Percentile Ranking YTD Benchmark - Provides the hospital with question and category heading scores along with comparative analysis relative to the entire database.
• Top Box YTD - Provides the hospital with a response summary specific to each question and category heading.
• YTD Benchmark - Provides the hospital with a comparison of "proprietary" question scores against the aggregate scores of the entire database.