SOPS Medical Office Database Submission Information

Medical Office Survey on Patient Safety Culture

Many medical offices using the AHRQ Medical Office Survey on Patient Safety Culture have expressed interest in comparing their results to other medical offices. In response, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has established the Medical Office Survey on Patient Safety Culture Database. This database is a central repository for survey data from medical offices that have administered the AHRQ patient safety culture survey.

Purpose of the Database
Benefits of Participation and Database Products
Definition of a Medical Office
Participation Requirements
Timeline and Activities
Registration and Data Submission
Data Processing and Database Report Produced
Contact Information

Purpose of the Database

To gather data from the AHRQ Medical Office Survey on Patient Safety Culture into a central repository.
To produce results to help medical offices identify strengths and opportunities for improvement in their patient safety culture.

Benefits of Participation and Database Products

Each participating medical office receives a feedback report comparing their results to the database.
A free Database Report is produced providing aggregate medical office-level statistics. The documents do not include any information identifying participating medical offices.
Additional results by medical office characteristics (number of providers, specialty, ownership, and region) and respondent characteristics (staff position) are also available in the Database Report.

Definition of a Medical Office

A medical office is an outpatient facility in a specific location.
Each medical office located in a building containing multiple medical offices is considered a separate medical office.
Providers in a single medical office should share administrative and clinical support staff.

Participation Requirements

To submit data to the database:

Medical Offices must be located in the United States or in a U.S. territory.
Each medical office must have at least 5 completed surveys.
The survey must have been administered in its entirety without modifications or deletions. Your survey will not be accepted if:
- You made changes to any of the survey item text and/or response options.
- You reordered the survey items.
- You deleted one or more survey items.
- You added new questions within the core survey, before the demographic questions in Section H.

Timeline and Activities

Registration and Data Submission

To submit to the Medical Office Database, follow these steps:

Medical offices, health systems, or survey vendors that have administered the AHRQ Medical Office Survey on Patient Safety Culture indicate their interest in participating in the database by sending an Email with "Medical Office Database" in the subject line to DatabasesOnSafetyCulture@westat.com.
Database staff send registration information to interested submitters.
Medical offices, health systems, or vendors submitting on behalf of medical offices complete registration information.
Database staff review the registration information and request a copy of the survey(s) actually administered. Interested submitters are notified regarding their eligibility for participation.
Eligible medical offices, health systems, or vendors:
1. Should follow these survey data specifications (PDF, 251 KB) for formatting respondent-level data files for submission.
2. Provide medical office characteristics such as ownership and type of practice. Follow these specifications(PDF, 39.5 KB) to gather medical office characteristics.
3. Sign a Data Use Agreement (PDF, 236 KB), which assures medical offices about the confidentiality of their data and explains how their data will be used.
Eligible medical offices, health systems, or their survey vendors submit respondent-level survey data and other required information about their medical offices.
1. Data are submitted using a secure, Web-based system.
2. Data files must meet data specifications.

Data Processing and Database Report Produced

The data submitted is processed, and averages, standard deviations, minimum and maximum scores, and percentiles are produced.
Additional results by medical office characteristics such as ownership and specialty and respondent characteristics such as staff position are produced.
The 2018 Medical Office Database Report presents data from 2,437 U.S. medical offices. The report consists of a narrative description of the findings and two appendixes, presenting data by medical office characteristics (number of providers, single specialty vs. multispecialty, specialty, primary care specialty, ownership, and region) and respondent characteristics (staff position and tenure in medical office). The report contains data voluntarily submitted by participating medical offices and is not representative of all U.S. medical offices.

Contact Information

If you are interested in participating in the Medical Office Survey on Patient Safety Culture Database, send an email to: DatabasesOnSafetyCulture@westat.com with your complete contact information and "Medical Office Database" in the subject line.

For technical assistance on data submission, call 1-888-324-9790.

Page last reviewed June 2019
Page originally created August 2013

Internet Citation: SOPS Medical Office Database Submission Information. Content last reviewed June 2019. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. https://www.ahrq.gov/sops/databases/medical-office/submission.html