How to Improve HCAHPS by Business Line

The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Hospital Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey has been an integral part of hospitals wishing to participate with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reimbursement programs since 2006. While many hospitals conducted their own patient satisfaction surveys across disciplines prior to the implementation of HCAHPS, now there is a consistency in measuring a hospitals effectiveness, from a patient's perspective, compared to it's peers. Added to this is the survey results are in the public domain, and hospitals have even more incentive for administrators and staff to prepare for the HCAHPS survey.

Instructions

Improving HCAHPS results, begins with understanding the survey

• 1

  Treating patients well results in top box scores

  Increase HCAHPS results across business lines by beginning with a clear understanding of what the survey measures; the key components of the assessment that can make the difference between top, middle or bottom box scores. The top box score is indicative of higher scored survey results, middle box represents intermediate results and lower box scores are cause for concern. The areas measured by the HCAHPS survey are communication, responsiveness, facility cleanliness, pain management, would a patient recommend the hospital, discharge information and an overall rating via 27 questions asked of recently discharged patients.

• 2

  Take advantage of training opportunities

  Study what the HCAHPS survey measures, and you will certainly help to increase the number of top box scores. Taking that one step further, is understanding the expectations of the CMS, this will further focus the staff's efforts to improve the patient experience. The CMS holds training sessions throughout the year, which is required for project managers within hospitals that self-administer the survey, and for third party vendors that conduct a majority of the survey. Required or not, this can be a valuable tool in improving HCAHPS results and should be utilized for all hospitals wanting to improve.

• 3

  Personalize the survey for improved results

  Select the manner in which a HCAHPS survey is conducted carefully, as this can also impact results. Which of the four ways a hospital contacts patients can certainly play an important factor in final scoring. Of the four means of contact; a phone survey, mail, mail followed by a phone call or interactive voice recognition (IVR), review results of your and other hospitals HCAHPS scores to determine what, if any, patterns emerge. It is logical to assume, for example, that surveys done using IVR may not result in as high a score as the patient that was directly contacted by a live person via the phone.

• 4

  Improvment begins with analyzing existing information

  Analyze current and past HCAHPS surveys as a means of improving future results. As with any data, careful study of HCAHPS by the project manager and other key hospital administrators and staff will highlight the areas needing to improvement. If, as is often the case, there are one or two particular areas that are consistently showing up as middle box scores, this will narrow the focus of improvement efforts.

• 5

  Structured training can improve results

  Develop and implement a structured plan to improve in any area of the HCAHPS survey not meeting existing standards. Recognizing areas of concern is a vital step in the process for improving, once that information has been determined, it must be acted upon. Developing a training action plan with time and behavior milestones, and then monitoring and measuring that plan are how long-term improvements are made.