Defense Health Agency Patient Safety Culture Survey

The 2001 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) contains specific sections addressing patient safety in military and veterans’ health care systems. This legislation states that the Secretary of Defense shall establish a patient care error reporting and management system to study occurrences of errors in patient care and that one purpose of the system should be to “identify systemic factors that are associated with such occurrences” and “to provide for action to be taken to correct the identified systemic factors” (Sec. 754, items b2 and b3). In addition, the legislation states that the Secretary shall “continue research and development investments to improve communication, coordination, and teamwork in the provision of health care” (Sec. 754, item d4). As an ongoing response to this legislation, DHA Headquarters has implemented a web-based patient safety culture survey to obtain DHA staff opinions on patient safety issues. Participation in the DHA Patient Safety Culture Survey also fulfills The Joint Commission (TJC) accreditation requirements related to assessing patient safety culture and using the results to improve. As part of its Leadership Standards, TJC requires facility leaders regularly evaluate the culture of safety and quality using valid and reliable tools and prioritize and implement changes identified by the evaluation. Additionally, DHA inpatient military treatment facilities (MTFs) recently began participating in The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, an initiative that provides a letter grade rating of a hospital’s patient safety measures through more than 30 national performance indicators. Participation in the DHA Patient Safety Culture Survey provides MTFs with data and information assessed by The Leapfrog Group as part of the Hospital Safety Grade calculation.

The latest form for Defense Health Agency Patient Safety Culture Survey expires 2027-11-30 and can be found here.