Many hospitals trend their patient safety culture scores to determine whether their patient safety culture improves over time. Given the substantial changes made in HSOPS 2.0, it is not possible to trend scores from a previous administration of HSOPS 1.0 to a current administration of HSOPS 2.0. If the two surveys are administered at different times, it is not possible to determine the extent to which differences in scores are due to changes in HSOPS 2.0 or due to actual changes in patient safety culture over time.
Hospitals have three options for transitioning from HSOPS 1.0 to HSOPS 2.0.
- Option 1: Administer HSOPS 2.0—with no trending of previous HSOPS 1.0 scores;
- Option 2: Administer HSOPS 1.0 One More Time—to trend previous HSOPS 1.0 scores and then later administer HSOPS 2.0 to establish a new baseline on HSOPS 2.0; or
- Option 3: Conduct Simultaneous Administration of HSOPS 1.0 and HSOPS 2.0—to trend previous HSOPS 1.0 scores and establish a new baseline on HSOPS 2.0 at the same time. This option involves administering HSOPS 1.0 and HSOPS 2.0 at the same time (simultaneous administration), with half of the providers and staff receiving HSOPS 1.0 and the other half receiving HSOPS 2.0. This option is only feasible for larger hospitals (with at least 1,000 providers and staff), because a large number of providers and staff are needed to produce reliable and accurate measurements on both surveys at the same time. Smaller hospitals should use Option 1 or 2.
Only Option 3 (simultaneous administration) enables hospitals to trend their current HSOPS 1.0 scores to previous HSOPS 1.0 scores, while establishing a new baseline on HSOPS 2.0. In future years, only HSOPS 2.0 would need to be administered to trend HSOPS 2.0 scores over time. Option 3 enables hospitals to directly compare their HSOPS 1.0 and HSOPS 2.0 scores because the comparison is done when both surveys are administered simultaneously. When both surveys are administered simultaneously, differences in scores can be attributed to changes that were made in HSOPS 2.0 rather than changes in patient safety culture over time.
Figure 1: Option 3: Conduct Simultaneous Administration of HSOPS 1.0 and HSOPS 2.0 (Only Larger Hospitals With 1,000+ Providers and Staff)
![Previous survey administration—HSOPS 1.0. No Trending of HSOPS 1.0—Do Not Compare HSOPS 1.0 with HSOPS 2.0. Next survey administration—HSOPS 2.0. Trending of HSOPS 2.0 to 2nd survey administration—HSOPS 2.0.](/https/www.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/sops/surveys/hospital/hsops2-option3.jpg)
For more information about these options and what changes your hospital can expect in scores due to changes in the survey instrument, review the document Transitioning to the SOPS Hospital Survey Version 2.0: What’s Different and What To Expect (PDF, 776 KB).