SOPS Action Planning Tool

This tool was designed primarily for users of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Surveys on Patient Safety Culture. The tool is intended for use after your organization administers the survey and analyzes the results. It provides step-by-step guidance to help survey users develop an action plan to improve patient safety culture.

Select for Word (tool only, 112 KB) and PDF (includes instructions, 901 KB).

Prepared by Westat, Rockville, M.D.: Joann Sorra, Ph.D., Laura Gray, M.P.H., Martha Franklin, M.A., Suzanne Streagle, M.A., Rachel Tesler, Ph.D., and Amanda Vithidkul, M.P.H.

Prepared for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) under Contract No. HHSA 290201300003C.

Purpose
Before You Begin
Develop Your Action Plan
Action Plan for the AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture

Purpose

This Safety Culture Tool was designed primarily for users of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Surveys on Patient Safety Culture (www.ahrq.gov/sops/about/index.html).

The Tool is intended for use after your organization administers the survey and analyzes the results. It provides step-by-step guidance to help survey users develop an action plan to improve patient safety culture. This tool includes an Action Plan Template your organization can use to document goals, initiatives, needed resources, process and outcome measures, and timelines.

The AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture enable hospitals, medical offices, nursing homes, community pharmacies, and ambulatory surgery centers to assess how their staff perceive various aspects of patient safety culture. The survey is an important source of information for health care organizations striving to improve patient safety and can be used as an effective starting point for action planning to achieve changes in culture. Promotion of such change is the driving force behind the surveys.

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The authors of this guide are responsible for its content. Statements in the guide should not be construed as endorsement by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This document is in the public domain and may be used and reprinted without permission except those copyrighted materials noted, for which further reproduction is prohibited without specific permission of copyright holders.

No investigators have any affiliations or financial involvement (e.g., employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties) that conflict with material presented in this document.

Page last reviewed February 2018
Page originally created December 2015

Internet Citation: SOPS Action Planning Tool. Content last reviewed February 2018. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/sops/resources/planning-tool/index.html