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Culture Evaluation

How healthy is your organizational culture?

Evaluating your healthcare organization's culture can lead to better, safer care.

Safety culture evaluation uses standardized surveys as diagnostic tools to identify areas for improvement and is useful for identifying organizational conditions that can lead to adverse events and patient harm in healthcare organizations. 

Safety culture surveys are part of the Center for Patient Safety's (CPS) culture evaluation process. Standardized surveys allow organizations to listen to the voice of their employees through a safe and confidential format. When administered and used correctly, the results can provide invaluable insight into the safety-related perceptions and attitudes of their managers and staff.

CPS has developed a robust and flexible culture evaluation process that includes survey administration with pre- and post-survey support to strengthen the progress toward positive culture change. Each phase of our service includes self-guided components, but we encourage you to harness the one-on-one expertise of our survey team. Our process allows you to choose from hundreds of combinations to create a survey as unique as your organization. Or use our standardized and proven methods to achieve just as effective results. Whatever your needs, the patient safety and survey experts at CPS have you covered.

Addressing culture improvement takes time. Use the surveys regularly to monitor the effectiveness of your programs and CPS will help you achieve your greatness. 

Since 2011, CPS has administered hundreds of thousands of surveys to employees in hundreds of healthcare organizations across the country. Our unique survey administration is flexible and adaptable whether you have the smallest EMS service in rural America, the largest multi-state organization, or you're somewhere in between. We have your culture evaluation needs covered.

The 3 Phases of the Culture Evaluation Process

Available Survey Tools

CHOOSE THE SURVEYS YOU NEED

It's important to choose the right tool for the job - and we offer them all. Select the surveys that align with your staff disciplines and workplace. CPS administers the AHRQ Culture Survey on Patient Safety™ (SOPS™) for hospitals, nursing homes, medical offices, ambulatory surgery centers, and pharmacies. We’ve also developed the ONLY culture surveys that align with AHRQ surveys for emergency medical services and home care. Choose one, a few, many, or even all surveys from the following list. Each survey tool includes benchmarks and most are available in multiple languages. 

  • Hospital Survey on Patient Safety™ (SOPS™) from AHRQ, version 1.0 or 2.0   MORE
  • Medical Office Survey on Patient Safety™ (SOPS™) from AHRQ  MORE
  • Community Pharmacy Survey on Patient Safety™ (SOPS™) from AHRQ  MORE
  • Ambulatory Surgery Center Survey on Patient Safety™ (SOPS™) from AHRQ  MORE
  • Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety™ (SOPS™) from AHRQ  MORE
  • Home Care/Hospice Patient Safety Culture Survey from the Center for Patient Safety  MORE
  • Emergency Medical Services (Air/Ground) from the Center for Patient Safety  MORE
Are you shifting from another vendor? CPS will make it a smooth transition. We'll even build your historical results into our reports so you have access to trends over time.

 

Customizations

EXPLORE ALL OF YOUR SURVEY CUSTOMIZATION OPTIONS

Harness the ability to customize your survey(s) with questions from the CPS Supplemental Question Library or add your own. We'll create a survey for you that digs into your most pressing concerns while maintaining the integrity of available benchmarks. We'll help you identify which (if any) should be added to your survey. Available CPS Supplemental Question sets have been developed by well-respected educational institutions and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and include:

  • Employee Engagement
  • Workload and Burnout
  • Just Culture
  • Second Victim
  • AHRQ Workforce Safety
  • AHRQ Value and Efficiency
  • AHRQ Health Information Technology
  • and more!

GET MORE SUPPORT WITH LESS RISK

Challenging times create a feeling of frustration around the burdening levels of risk. CPS' survey administration is now:

  • More supportive.  CPS helps you administer the survey and you can focus on your daily and emergent work.
  • More flexible. Make adjustments quickly and as often as needed.
  • Less risky. We want your survey to be successful. Depending upon your situation, we are prepared to support you through challenging times, which may involve survey modification or resurveying at no cost to you.  
  • Less time-consuming. CPS can help you get more from your survey and move you toward solutions faster. You don't need to learn new software or become a data analyst. We'll provide you with all of the information you need.
  • More affordable. CPS offers a range of pricing models that fits most budgets. Patient safety is all we do. Together, we will reduce preventable harm.

Prepare and Organize

What do you want to gain from the survey? A good survey will support a higher response rate and result in more reliable and valid data. You'll need to decide whom you are going to survey,  which survey they will receive, how you'll tell them about the survey, and how you'll deliver it to them. 

CPS survey preparations include:

  • toolkit with posters, email templates, and more;
  • sleek default survey options, or customize your own with additional questions or designs;
  • choose from survey distribution options that align with, and support,  your goals.

With CPS, you'll receive the inspiration you need along with unique consultation from patient safety and culture survey experts. 

Medical team in row looking at the camera
Doctor working with laptop computer in medical workspace office and medical network media diagram as concept

Launch and Deliver

The survey should be available to all staff, on all shifts, in all areas. Therefore, it's important to determine the distribution and collection method that best matches your current needs. Some organizations may opt for a survey link available through an intranet site while others may choose email distribution with anonymity. Both methods have advantages.

CPS offers a variety of distribution options, including combining offerings, to ensure you reach your response rate goal.  

Evaluate, Strategize and Operationalize

Once your survey is complete, CPS will provide a series of robust reports that will reveal the depth and breadth of strengths and challenges throughout your organization. You will have the information and data your organization needs to develop an effective culture improvement action plan. Continued support may include pulse surveying or alternative ongoing metric evaluations.

CPS can support your organization through the next stage of your patient safety culture maturity.

businessman hand working with modern technology and digital layer effect as business strategy concept

The CPS Difference

Our team is dedicated to you.

Each CPS team member assigned to your culture evaluation process has healthcare experience and is an expert in patient safety culture evaluation. A dedicated survey program manager will plan, build, customize, and support your survey administration. A dedicated data analyst will review each survey and thoroughly prepare your quantitative reports. And finally, a dedicated patient safety specialist can review your results from a qualitative perspective, evaluating current internal happenings and identifying actionable opportunities.  We can help you achieve higher than average response rates; results within 30 days; and without learning new software. 

Unmatched customer service.

You can continue to focus on your daily and emergent work knowing your dedicated CPS team wants to make the entire process as easy as possible. We will provide unparalleled support throughout the entire culture evaluation process from survey planning to post-survey next steps. Together, we want to help you achieve the most successful survey possible.

Select the right survey tool.

Don't settle. With eight different safety culture surveys, CPS can administer the right survey to the right employees. Choose from the AHRQ Culture Survey on Patient Safety™ (SOPS™) for hospitals, nursing homes, medical offices, ambulatory surgery centers, and pharmacies. We’ve also developed the only culture surveys that align with AHRQ surveys for emergency medical services (air and ground) and home care. Many surveys are available in multiple languages. Administer one or all, or choose just the ones you need.

Ease your work burden.

CPS handles the heavy lifting including survey preparation, development, and deployment, and data evaluation, scrubbing, and analytics. Our team ensures your survey is designed to fit your needs. You can choose our sleek standard process or our team can help you customize part or all of your culture evaluation process. CPS clients receive their results in ready-to-use formats and easy-to-read reports within 1-4 weeks after the survey closes. You'll be moving in the right direction faster and more efficiently.

Trusted Process. Secure space.

The CPS team knows how important confidentiality and security are to you and your healthcare organization. Your survey and the data collection will occur through a secure portal that is unique to you. All surveys are created for multi-device compatibility and secure response collection. CPS can provide you with your raw data at your request. We treat your data like you own it - because you do.

Unmatched data reports.

Clients come from all over the country, and from many other survey vendors, to receive the unique and robust culture feedback reports from CPS. Our team will review every incoming survey, scrub the data for integrity, and can provide feedback with a thoroughness that only our team of patient safety experts can provide. Unlike many vendors, CPS' feedback reports contain benchmarks, historical trend information, next steps, and more. CPS can include the information from your previous survey(s), even if you didn't use CPS. We make it easy to switch.

CPS Expert Safety Culture Evaluation Services

Standard Services

CPS' unique Pre-Survey Planning Guide and tools
Customize your survey dates
Customization of units/locations/offices
Unlimited use of questions from CPS Supplemental Library
Customization of survey Introduction and Thank You screens
Survey via a secure hyperlink (https://)
Multi-device availability (Mobile, Desktop)
Anonymous survey collection
Access 'Live' quantity of responses
Historical data accepted via Excel or CSV
CPS' thorough approach to data scrubbing
CPS' distinctive feedback reports in 30 days
Post-Survey improvement Resources
Action Plan Template
National benchmarks
Unit-level benchmarks (where available)
 Submission to National Compare Database

Survey Vendor Selection Tips

Tips for Survey Vendor Selection

Optional Services

Looking for a little more? Add any or all of the following. We know everyone is not a culture expert - and you may not be a data expert either! That's okay, we've got you covered.

  • Customize Your Survey by adding some of your own questions. This is helpful if you used custom questions in the past that aren't in the CPS Supplemental Question Library, or if there is something very specific you want to ask employees.
  • Email Distribution: we'll send the survey directly to your employees' Inbox
  • Post-Survey Consult for Result Interpretation: You will spend time with an experienced patient safety expert from CPS who will personally evaluate your results and challenge you to identify causal factors and start on an action plan. After the call, you will be knowledgeable about the results, the factors that led to the results, and how to read and interpret the data contained in your feedback reports. This is helpful if you are new to evaluating your culture and new to CPS.
  • Post-Survey Consult for Report Interpretation: A patient safety survey team member from CPS will personally walk through your reports to help clarify your interpretation of the data including benchmarks, rates, and specific questions and dimensions. After the call, you will understand how to read and describe the data contained in their reports. This is helpful if you are new to using CPS.
  • Executive Summary Report: Written by an experienced patient safety healthcare expert, this formal summary of your organization's results will include a quantitative and qualitative evaluation. This is helpful if your C-suite is looking for a formal, expert opinion.
  • Additional Pre-Survey Support: This is helpful if this is your first survey in a large organization.
  • Post-Survey Consultation includes a patient safety expert to connect the dots between your survey data and real application to organizational strategy. This is helpful if you would like support and expert guidance with your action planning, goal alignment, and change implementation plans.

Frequently Asked Questions

CPS encourages you to customize your distribution based on your organization's needs. Two distinct methods of survey distribution are available. Select one or both methods to ensure you reach all of your employees. 
  • Internal distribution: CPS provides a hyperlink to your custom survey. You can distribute the link via email, display it on posters, or post it to your organization's intranet site. Anonymity is supported.
  • External distribution: CPS will email the survey link directly to your employees with custom messaging from you. CPS will track responses and remind your staff when they haven't completed the survey. Anonymity is supported.

An additional option is paper distribution. Ask CPS if you are interested in this option.

AHRQ recommends administering a safety culture survey every 12-18 months. The Joint Commission and LeapFrog recommend annual culture measurement.  If 12-18 months is too often, consider a pulse survey every 3-5 months in between full surveys. Ask CPS about pulse surveying between surveys.

Once your survey is complete, CPS will work closely with you to ensure you understand how to interpret the unique data in your reports. 

CPS staff know the value of your employee's feedback and we know the survey provides much more than just data. Our reports provide guidance on next steps, links to practical and (often free) resources and tools, and benchmarks.

Additionally, our patient safety experts will personally guide you through report interpretation and action planning. You’ll be matched with a CPS patient safety expert that has actual experience with your healthcare organization’s disciplines. You’ll be given plenty of opportunities to ask questions and request additional support.

IT needs are, overall, minimal but necessary. Depending upon how you would like CPS to distribute the survey, there will be a few recommendations to ensure staff has unhindered access to the survey.  We'll work with you and your IT team to ensure functionality before the survey starts.

CPS recommends a minimum of 30 days to prepare and market the survey, then 30 days for the survey to be open to employees, and another 30 days for the CPS team to clean the responses, prepare the feedback reports, and analyze your results. Large and diverse organizations should plan for longer prep time.

Culture-timeline

 

As a leader in patient safety, CPS is dedicated to our mission of reducing preventable harm through the provision of resources and services that can be used by any healthcare organization. As a nonprofit organization, CPS is committed to keeping costs of services low in order to encourage participation. Service fees are used to offset our costs incurred and further support our process improvement efforts and service enhancements. 

No organization is the same, so our pricing is different for every organization, too. Ask us for a proposal based on your preferred survey needs and we'll create a custom estimate just for you. We look forward to hearing from you!

We can build a flexible survey and timeline that reflects your unique situation and helps to reduce the risk associated with launching a survey during challenging times. We will address your concerns and you can rest assured knowing the CPS team of survey experts will assist you through the many unknowns.
Your survey experts at CPS are now:

  • Even more flexible. We'll adjust your survey start or close date within as little as 24 hours. Do you need to start right away? We're happy to help. We can expedite your survey and likely at no additional cost.
  • Even more supportive. Our team is dedicated to your success. We will help track your response rates so you can keep your focus on your daily and emergent work. We’ll stay in touch to help you through.
  • Minimizing your risk. If you’ve launched your survey and need to cancel or postpone unexpectedly, we will work with you to provide options for re-instating the survey at a later date, at no additional cost. We can also amend your current contract if needed to extend the contract to allow more time for completion.
  • Providing even more enhancements. We recommend organizations add a set of questions focused on burnout from our Question Library. We are offering these at no additional cost.

Want to Learn More?

Interested in a one-on-one call? Schedule a meeting with our experts to delve deeper into your options and discover more about the enriching culture survey experience offered by the Center for Patient Safety.

Contact Us for More Information

What Our Clients Say

We love our clients, and, it turns out, they are fond of us, too.

"CPS has been easy to work with. The detailed reports reduced the hours we spent manipulating and analyzing data. With the presentation and anonymity of the survey, employees felt they could be truthful with their comments, and we feel we are hearing the voice of everyone in the organization."

 

Erin Satsky
Vail Health
“I am very impressed with the safety culture feedback reports. We have been saved from countless hours preparing our own reports. Our leadership team is thrilled with the easy-to-read format and the visual detail including our trends from previous surveys.”
Anonymous
The Center for Patient Safety (CPS) was a valuable and reliable partner during all stages of our employee safety survey. CPS was accessible, swift to answer our questions, and provided helpful recommendations to increase engagement with employees. The survey reports were timely and we believe our employees felt comfortable to let their voices be heard. CPS definitely met the needs of our health system.
Rochester Regional Health
“We love the Center’s patient safety culture survey feedback reports. The department level reports give a level of granularity we were lacking with previous surveys.”
Anonymous
“Working with the Center for Patient Safety has been a pleasure for our large health system… We value their administration of our patient safety culture survey process, saving us many hours and boosting our participation to over 60%.”
Anonymous