Dosher Memorial Hospital needed a SOPS survey process its staff could trust and a partner that could reduce the workload on a one-person quality department. With American Data Network, the hospital gained trusted outside administration, AHRQ-ready data, and reporting designed to support follow-up and patient safety improvement.
IN THIS CASE STUDY
The Problem: A One-Person Quality Department Needed a Trusted Survey Process
The Path: American Data Network Managed the Details While Dosher Focused on Staff Engagement
The Outcome: Less Manual Work, Clearer Comparisons, and Data for Planning
The Conclusion: SOPS Survey Support That Goes Beyond Administration
Dosher Memorial Hospital had completed culture of safety surveys before, but its 2026 survey needed to do more than collect responses. As an independent critical access hospital, the organization wanted a cost-conscious way to administer the AHRQ SOPS Hospital Survey, reinforce staff confidence in anonymity, preserve continuity with prior survey results, and prepare data in a format that could support AHRQ submission.
That work would have been difficult to absorb internally. Lesa Anderson, RN, BSN, CPHQ, described herself as a one-person department, and managing survey deployment, reminders, response tracking, reporting, graphs, and AHRQ submission preparation would have added significant work to an already full role. Outside administration also supported one of the hospital’s core priorities: reinforcing its promise that staff responses would remain anonymous.
The hospital also needed the results to be useful after the survey closed. Earlier culture of safety surveys had provided valuable feedback, but prior survey data had not been prepared in a format that could be forwarded to AHRQ. For the 2026 survey, Anderson wanted a partner that could support benchmarking and compare new results with prior survey findings where possible.
For hospital leaders, the survey was not just a compliance exercise. Anderson said the organization has “always valued the voice of the frontline workers and those that deal with patient clinical care,” and uses culture of safety results to evaluate whether improvement efforts over time are making a meaningful difference.
Dosher partnered with the American Data Network Patient Safety Organization (ADNPSO), an AHRQ-listed Patient Safety Organization, to administer its electronic patient safety culture survey from February 9 to February 23, 2026. ADNPSO used the AHRQ Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture version 2.0, administered the survey, aggregated the data, and compared the hospital’s results with AHRQ’s 2024 SOPS Hospital 2.0 Database.
ADNPSO also included the hospital’s 2023 historical culture survey results for supplementary comparison. Because a different vendor conducted the previous survey, ADNPSO included aggregated comparison data where available.
That side-by-side view gave leaders more than a single-year snapshot. Anderson said the comparison helped the hospital understand whether prior improvement efforts were meaningful and whether performance had changed over time.
ADNPSO also supported the practical work required to drive staff participation. The hospital promoted the survey through emails, posters, table tents, and QR codes. Staff placed table tents in lunchrooms and department lounges so employees could see what the survey was, understand why it mattered, and access it easily.
Anderson described ADNPSO’s process as organized, responsive, and collaborative. She said Kristi Toblesky, CPHQ, Manager, Data Analytics at ADN, was very familiar with the survey process, provided guidance on what tends to work, made materials easy to access, and responded quickly when questions came up. “It went beyond, ‘We’re here to administer the survey,'” Anderson said. “It was, ‘We want to make sure you’re successful.'”
ADNPSO’s reporting gave the hospital a clear, leader-ready view of its 2026 SOPS survey results while preserving the context needed for follow-up. Rather than looking at the survey as a single score, leaders could review benchmark comparisons, available historical trends, department-level views, and response information in an organized report format.
For Anderson, the process reduced the administrative weight of the SOPS survey. ADNPSO’s response updates, department progress information, ready-to-use email templates, graphs, and report format took work off her plate and made it easier to manage the project as a one-person department.
As Anderson put it, ADNPSO’s support was “definitely a time saver and a burden reducer on the person that’s responsible for administration of the survey.”
The report also gave the hospital a clearer way to interpret results. Leaders could compare current performance with AHRQ benchmarks and prior survey results where comparison data was available, giving them a stronger basis for department conversations and planning.
Handoffs and Information Exchange became the clearest example. Anderson said this area had been a focus after an earlier survey, improved in a later cycle, and remains an area where the hospital sees more work to do. The 2026 report reinforced that priority, and Handoffs and Information Exchange has been included in the hospital’s quality metrics.
The results also supported broader planning. The hospital shared the survey data with department leaders, and Anderson said the results will be incorporated into strategic planning work. At the time of the interview, the organization was still developing the next phase of its plan, so specific follow-up initiatives had not yet been fully rolled out.
Key Outcomes
Dosher Memorial Hospital’s 2026 SOPS project shows the value of working with a survey partner that understands both the technical and practical sides of patient safety culture work. By combining survey administration, staff communication support, response monitoring, benchmarking, and historical comparison, ADNPSO helped the hospital move through the SOPS process with less manual coordination and more confidence in the results.
Anderson said she would use American Data Network again and would encourage other hospitals looking for a survey vendor to consider ADNPSO. She described the experience as collaborative, professional, smooth, and easy. “From a cost perspective, it’s very competitive,” Anderson said. “I do feel like you get a lot for the price of partnering with American Data Network.”
For many hospital quality and patient safety leaders, the real burden of a culture of safety survey is the work around it: building staff trust, coordinating communications, monitoring participation, preparing AHRQ-ready data, and turning findings into meaningful next steps. For small teams, the right partner can make the difference between completing a survey and having results that are easier to trust, explain, and use.
If your team is managing SOPS internally, working with limited staff, or looking for a clearer path from survey results to action, American Data Network’s SOPS service can make the process easier to manage and more useful after the survey closes.
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