Resources

There are a variety of resources available in the field of safety and performance improvement. Some recommended resources are;

General Quality and Safety Resources:

Institute for Healthcare Improvement www.ihi.org
IHI is the premier organization for leading edge strategies and experiences in healthcare improvement. Their annual Forum is a valuable opportunity to learn from experts in the field of quality and safety excellence.

National Patient Safety Foundation www.npsf.org
The mission of NPSF is to Improve the safety of patients by focusing on creation of a core body of knowledge; building the receptivity of professional people to the need to focus on and improve patient safety and to increase awareness of the public about patient safety. It is an excellent source of information on patient safety. Key tools available on their websites are a listserv, several annotated bibliographies and a repository of tools from around the country.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality www.ahrq.gov/qual/
AHRQ has served as a a key source for quality and safety tools including research and measurement tools, a Web M&M site and specific tools and programs that focus on this topic.

Safety Culture Surveys:

AHRQ Safety Culture Survey www.ahrq.gov/qual/hospculture
The AHRQ Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture is a useful tool to administer as a baseline and ongoing measure of a key componenet of transformation. In addition to availability of the tools itself, there is also a Patient Safety Culture Database as a central repository for survey data. This tool can be applied to a hospital as a whole, or specific units within a hospital, as well as to track changes in patient safety over time and evaluate the impact of patient safety interventions.

Safety Climate Survey Tool from The Center of Excellence for Patient Safety Research & Practice, University of Texas (available on IHI website- www.ihi.org/IHI/Topics/PatientSafety/SafetyGeneral/Tools/Safety+Climate+Survey)
This survey tool was developed as a collaboration between the University of Texas Center of Excellence for Patient Safety Research & Practice and John Hopkins Hospital. The tool is available on the IHI website and includes a Safety Climate Survey Calculation Spreadsheet.