A Strategy for Administration and Application of a Patient Safety Culture Survey

Lee, Gyeong-sil; Park, Mi-jin; Na, Hae-ran; Jeong, Heon-jae

doi:2015.21.1.80

Qual Improv Health Care > Volume 21(1); 2015 > Article

Quality Improvement in Health Care 2015;21(1): 80.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14371/QIH.2015.21.1.80 Published online June 30, 2015.

환자안전문화 측정을 위한 설문조사 수행 및 결과 활용 기법

이경실¹, 박미진², 나해란³, 정헌재⁴

¹서울대병원 가정의학과
²의료기관평가인증원 인증사업실
³서울성모병원 카톨릭의과대학 정신과학교실
⁴존스홉킨스보건대학원 의료관리및정책학과

A Strategy for Administration and Application of a Patient Safety Culture Survey

Gyeong-sil Lee¹, Mi-jin Park², Hae-ran Na³, Heon-jae Jeong⁴

¹Department of Family Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital
²Department of Accreditation Operation, Korea Institute for Healthcare Accreditation
³Department of Psychiatry, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea
⁴Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Abstract

Objectives
A safety culture is the bedrock for all patient safety improvement initiatives; thus, many resources have been invested in measuring hospital culture. However, many of these endeavors have failed to yield meaningful results. This article proposes a practical checklist to ensure successful administration of a safety culture survey and describes current methodologies for analyzing survey results to develop safety improvement programs.
Methods
We reviewed currently used safety culture surveys and summarized their strengths and weaknesses. We also reviewed studies using safety culture surveys and found several pitfalls leading to failure in survey administration. With this information, we developed a checklist that covers critical items in the survey process. We also reviewed newly developed methodologies for survey results analysis and application and described them using the Korean version of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire as an example.
Results
The checklist consists of three steps: survey preparation, administration, and analysis and application. Each step contains clear action items. The content even describes how to get buy-in from hospital executives and manage communication channels with them. Also, common misunderstandings regarding survey scores are described and possible solutions are suggested. In the analysis section, we demonstrate new methods for obtaining more accurate survey results and how to utilize these methods to develop and implement hospital-wide safety improvement programs.
Conclusion
A successful safety culture survey is the foundation of all future safety improvement projects. This review is intended to guide hospitals in enhancing safety.

Key words Patient safety;Safety culture;Safety climate;