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Background and Objectives: A safety culture is essential to minimize errors and adverse events. Its measurement is needed to design activities in order to improve it. This paper describes the methods and main results of a study on safety climate in a nation-wide representative sample of public hospitals of the Spanish NHS., Material and Method: The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture questionnaire was distributed to a random sample of health professionals in a representative sample of 24 hospitals, proportionally stratified by hospital size. Results are analyzed to provide a description of safety climate, its strengths and weaknesses. Differences by hospital size, type of health professional and service are analyzed using ANOVA., Results: A total of 2503 responses are analyzed (response rate: 40%, (93% from professionals with direct patient contact). A total of 50% gave patient safety a score from 6 to 8 (on a 10-point scale); 95% reported < 2 events last year. Dimensions "Teamwork within hospital units" (71.8 [1.8]) and "Supervisor/Manager expectations and actions promoting safety" (61.8 [1.7]) have the highest percentage of positive answers. "Staffing", "Teamwork across hospital units", "Overall perceptions of safety" and "Hospital management support for patient safety" could be identified as weaknesses. Significant differences by hospital size, type of professional and service suggest a generally more positive attitude in small hospitals and Pharmacy services, and a more negative one in physicians., Conclusions: Strengths and weaknesses of the safety climate in the hospitals of the Spanish NHS have been identified and they are used to design appropriate strategies for improvement.

Objective: To analyze the process of evaluating abstracts in the 2006 National Quality in Healthcare Conference in order to contribute to its continuous improvement, and to present its main scientific results., Design: descriptive study. 11 pairs of reviewers using explicit criteria evaluated abstracts., Population: all the abstracts received., Process: abstracts were accepted/rejected according to reviewers' concordant decisions. Disagreements were re-evaluated by 3 reviewers. Accepted abstracts were organized and distributed in the Conference according to the following criteria: total amount, available room and time, number of reviewers. The abstracts nominated for awards and which did not have discrepancies higher than 25 points were re-evaluated by all the reviewers. Their presentations in the Conference were also reviewed by a panel of judges created for this purpose, according to an evaluation guide., Results: 849 communications were received. Each reviewer evaluated a mean of 79 communications, obtaining an average score of 56 points. 762 communications were accepted (89.7%), 56.8% of them as a poster. Madrid (133) and Catalonia (124) had the highest amount of presentations in the Conference, but Cantabria and Murcia obtained the highest rates per million inhabitants., Conclusions: Despite the recently introduced changes, evaluating abstracts is a complex methodological process that still can be improved. It is conditioned by the need for limiting the extension of oral presentations and Conference time management. The scientific contribution to the Conference keeps rising. Its venue represents a geographic opportunity to encourage quality works., (Copyright © 2008 Sociedad Española de Calidad Asistencial. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.)