Patient safety culture in 30 Spanish hospital emergency departments: results of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture

Roqueta Egea F, Tomás Vecina S, Chanovas Borràs M

Objectives: 1) To ascertain the level of patient safety culture in hospital emergency

departments. 2) To determine whether the levels in these departments differ from the

levels found for the whole hospital. 3) To identify the dimensions with negative

assessments and propose measures for improvement.

Methods: Descriptive study of hospital emergency department results of the Hospital

Survey on Patient Safety Culture, a questionnaire developed by the Agency for

Healthcare Research and Quality and adapted for use in Castilian. Respondents to the

survey belonged to the staffs of hospital emergency departments. The questionnaire was

administered by students enrolled in training courses on patient safety offered by the

Spanish Society of Emergency Medicine (SEMES) in 2009 and 2010. The instrument

records positive and negative responses to 42 questions in 12 dimensions of patient

safety culture in addition to a global assessment of patient safety in the emergency

department expressed on a scale of 0 to 10.

Results: Thirty departments in 13 Spanish autonomous communities responded,

returning a total of 1388 valid questionnaires. The average score for patient safety was

6.1 points. The dimensions with the highest percentages of positive scores were

teamwork within units (68%) and supervisor/manager expectations and actions

promoting safety (56%). The dimensions with the lowest percentages of positive scores

were staffing (57%) and hospital management support for patient safety (47%). Four

dimensions accounted for nearly 50% of all the negative assessments, indicating which

areas should be prioritized when planning improvements.

Conclusions: The results for these hospital emergency departments are similar to those

obtained for other areas in Spanish National Health Service hospitals, although the

percentages for positive assessments were lower and the percentages for negative

assessments were higher. The average evaluation score was also lower. Measures to

improve the overall level of patient safety culture within emergency departments are

suggested.

Chanovas Borràs M, Roqueta Egea F, Tomás Vecina S