Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture Comparative Database

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine called for health care organizations to develop a "culture of safety" such that their workforce and processes focus on improving the reliability and safety of care for patients (IOM, 1999; "To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System"). To respond to the need for tools to assess patient safety culture in health care, AHRQ developed and pilot tested the Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture with OMB approval (OMB NO. 0935-0132; Approved July 5, 2007). The survey is designed to enable nursing homes to assess provider and staff opinions about patient safety issues, medical error, and error reporting and includes 42 items that measure 12 dimensions of patient safety culture. AHRQ made the survey publicly available along with a Survey User's Guide and other toolkit materials in November 2008 on the AHRQ Web site (located at http://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/quality-patient-safety/patientsafetyculture/nursing-home/index.html). The AHRQ Nursing Home SOPS Comparative Database consists of data from the AHRQ Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture. Nursing homes in the U.S. are asked to voluntarily submit data from the survey to AHRQ through its contractor, Westat. The Nursing Home SOPS database (OMB NO. 0935-0195, last approved on October 26, 2021) was developed by AHRQ in 2011 in response to requests from nursing homes interested in knowing how their patient safety culture survey results compare to those of other nursing homes in their efforts to improve patient safety. The survey and database have the following goals: 1) Promote improvements in the quality and safety of healthcare in nursing home settings, 2) Present results from nursing homes that voluntarily submit their data, 3) Provide data to nursing homes to facilitate internal assessment and learning in the patient safety improvement process, and 4) Provide supplemental information to help nursing homes identify their strengths and areas with potential for improvement in patient safety culture.

The latest form for Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture Comparative Database expires 2028-03-31 and can be found here.

SOPS Nursing Home Database Data Use Agreement

Federal Enterprise Architecture: Health - Health Care Services

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