At Oakbend Medical Center, our HCAHPS surveys are conducted by Press Ganey, “An Indiana-based health care company known for developing and distributing patient satisfaction surveys” (Press Ganey, 2019). The company Press Ganey conducts the HCAPS surveys and compiles the satisfaction scores next to the other hospitals in the area. When contacting patients to complete the HCAHPS survey, the nine crucial questions asked are:
During this hospital stay, how often did nurses explain things in a way you could understand?
During this hospital stay, how often did doctors explain things in a way you could understand?
During this hospital stay, after you pressed the call button, how often did you get help as soon as you wanted it?
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Before giving you any new medicine, how often did hospital staff tell you what the drug was for?
During this hospital stay, how often were your room and bathroom kept clean?
During this hospital stay, how often was the area around your room quiet at night?
During this hospital stay, did you get information in writing about what symptoms or health problems to look out for after you left the hospital?
Would you recommend this hospital to your friends and family?
The company contacts the patient up to three times to ensure that they receive a fair opportunity to complete the survey. We only contact patient that have been discharged with an inpatient status opposed to being hospitalized strictly under observation. We do have posters in and around the hospital that advertise the upcoming HCAHPS activities. Generally, there is a high return rate of surveys completed. All the patients just want their voices heard and are, therefore, doing the survey and submitting them ( Qayyum et al., 2014) . We then gather the survey data together and get ready to analyze them. Our facility employs a special team that statistically analyses the feedback from the patients and presents reasonable results to the hospital and the hospital board.
In order to increase our HCHAPS scores, there is extensive training with the healthcare staff on patient engagement. Another way we attempt to improve patient satisfaction is to do away with unnecessary noise around the hospital environment. Our facility does this by limiting visiting hours after 8:30 p.m. We also improve the environment by having the nurse and the certified nursing assistant go into the patient’s room at the same time at night. These measures may not seem too effective, but they were greatly influenced by the scores we obtained from HCAHPS. Furthermore, they help in providing conducive environments for patients to rest comfortably and with minimum stress ( Al-Amin, Makarem, & Rosko, 2016) .
HCAHPS perceive the data to be so much relevant. This data can help in improving healthcare across the country. The information is so critical in providing the current state of a healthcare institution ( Gestring et al., 2015) . It gives a reflection on how a hospital operates and generally, the necessary measures that have to be taken to improve the conditions of the healthcare institutions. All the data feedback is publicly posted on the HCAHPS websites and linked to other hospitals. There is also feedback reports dropped at the hospitals. This way, all the feedback reaches the providers and front line staff at these healthcare institutions. The organization has also found a way of rewarding the hospital that turns out to have provided the best medical conditions, as reported from the surveys.
References
Al-Amin, M., Makarem, S., & Rosko, M. (2016). Efficiency and hospital effectiveness in improving Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems ratings. Health Care Management Review , 41 (4), 296-305. doi: 10.1097/hmr.0000000000000076
Gestring, M., Kahn, S., Zhang, L., Iannuzzi, J., Noyes, K., & Monson, J. (2015). Getting satisfaction: drivers of surgical Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health care Providers and Systems survey scores. Journal of Surgical Research , 197 (1), 155-161. doi: 10.1016/j.jss.2015.03.045
Press Ganey. (2019). Press Ganey Associates. Retrieved from https://www.pressganey.com/
Qayyum, R., Wu, A., Kurbanova, N., & Siddiqui, Z. (2014). Comparison of Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems patient satisfaction scores for specialty hospitals and general medical hospitals: Confounding effect of survey response rate. Journal of Hospital Medicine , 9 (9), 590-593. doi: 10.1002/jhm.2225
