Using the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ) SOPS Survey, I chose the Hospital Survey 2.0 and completed it to evaluate our facility (2025). Our primary work unit is a medical unit, with occasional surgical patients in a non-profit teaching hospital in a community setting. The survey evaluates teamwork, staffing and the workplace, organizational learning, response to error, leadership support for patient safety, communication about error, communication openness, reporting patient safety events, hospital management support, and finally hand-offs and information exchange.

For our unit the staff feel that they work well together and support each other, but feel that “the reporting of mistakes” is getting people in trouble. As the manager of this unit for the past year, I found this culture when I first started, despite a very supportive environment throughout the hospital. Over the past year, I have tried to change this culture and openly discuss all trends in safety issues or any learning opportunities every opportunity that I can. I noticed from surveys and individual meetings with the staff that they did not feel supported by their previous manager, and felt like the were made to feel stupid by some of the charge nurses and manager. I have worked really hard to change this culture on our unit and have changed some staff who work in the charge role, oriented interested new staff who wanted to fill in as charge, and promoted a more non-punitive supportive environment.

In the hospital there is a daily safety call seven days a week and discuss everything that is concerning to the staff. I try to allow the staff to participate on the call if present and feel the support from our multidisciplinary team. If they are not able to be present for discussion, I always try to circle back to show support of their concern. We scored a 4.0 for Supervisor, Manager, or Lead for my support or administrators, as I do feel that safety issues are strongly investigated and supported using a multidisciplinary approach. Communication in our work area scored a 4.29. The staff feel that the unit is very well staffed and has low-turnover, but struggle with shift report and the hand-off of communication. I noticed in the beginning an unwillingness of not using the computer to give report and many things became miscommunicated. Studies have shown that there is a significant relationship between nurse communication and the quality of patient safety culture (Novivanti et al., 2021). It was found that the nurse communication satisfaction had the ability to create more cooperative relationships and foster trust which improved the quality of care and patient safety. Over the past few months, we have been implementing a style of bedside report using our computer hand-off on our work phones to provide the most accurate report in a streamline fashion. We celebrate when we identify mistakes or near misses and discuss in a non-punitive manner how we can improve.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2025). Sops surveys | Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. SOPS Surveys. https://www.ahrq.gov/sops/surveys/index.html

Noviyanti, L. W., Ahsan, A., & Sudartya, T. S. (2021). Exploring the relationship between nurses’ communication satisfaction and patient safety culture. Journal of Public Health Research, 10(2), 2225. National Library of Medicine. https://doi.org/10.4081/jphr.2021.2225