The SOPS® Databases Submission System
The Surveys on Patient Safety Culture® (SOPS) Database Submission system provides forms, specifications, and other information to support participation in the SOPS Databases. AHRQ established the SOPS Databases as central repositories for survey data from each of the SOPS surveys. Healthcare organizations that administer one of the AHRQ patient safety culture surveys can voluntarily submit their data to the appropriate database.
Access information about how to submit data and view results from recent SOPS Database reports for the following SOPS surveys:
Note: The healthcare organizations that voluntarily submit data to any one of the SOPS Databases are not from a statistically representative sample. A limited number of organizations might choose to participate; therefore, the participating organizations are not nationally representative of all healthcare organizations (e.g., hospitals, medical offices, nursing homes, community pharmacies, ambulatory surgery centers) in the United States. A "Data Limitations" section is included in each database report, which describes the characteristics of the participating organizations and limitations of the representativeness of the data.
SOPS Planned Data Submission Schedule
| SOPS Survey |
2023 |
2024 |
| Ambulatory Surgery Center |
June 1 – 22 |
- |
| Medical Office |
Sept 1 – 22 |
- |
| Hospital |
- |
June 3 – 21 |
| Nursing Home |
- |
Oct 1 – 21 |
| Community Pharmacy |
- |
- |
Benefits of Participating in the SOPS Databases
Participation in the SOPS Databases is free and open to survey users that administer surveys according to SOPS specifications. Users of the SOPS surveys who voluntarily submit their data to the SOPS Databases:
- Receive a Confidential Feedback Report that displays their own SOPS survey results in addition to the results from the pertinent Database.
- Contribute to a research dataset used to answer important questions related to assessing and improving patient safety culture.
- Contribute to aggregated data reported in the SOPS Database reports.
SOPS Database Research Datasets
In response to requests from researchers interested in using data from the AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture® for research purposes, AHRQ has established a process whereby researchers can request de-identified and hospital-identifiable data files from the SOPS Databases. For more information, please visit: https://www.ahrq.gov/sops/databases/research-datasets.html.
Technical Assistance
For technical assistance on data submission, email DatabasesOnSafetyCulture@westat.com or call 1-888-324-9790.
Email Updates