HCAHPS Preparation
Are
You Prepared to Publicly Report Your Performance? Be Proactive And Choose LifeWings Training
To Ensure That You Achieve High Quality Scores.
Hospital
Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS)
In Spring
2008, the federal government is expected to make public the results of the first
Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS)
survey. This survey is designed to give the everyday consumer access to patient
satisfaction data, ultimately, allowing them to compare hospitals and decide
where they will seek care. Unlike other
hospital rankings, HCAHPS scores are derived solely from patient satisfaction
feedback and as such, are expected to generate strong media and public interest.
Already there is significant media coverage of issues where Medicare payments
will cease for preventable medical errors (see recent CBS News stories:
Stopping Hospital Mistakes and
Quaid On Medical Mistakes).
Do you know where to direct your efforts and resources to ensure
your hospital’s good standing?
The following
are eight domains of the HCAHPS questionnaire that WILL impact your
hospital’s ratings, particularly if facing high nursing turn-over and/or
shortages.
1)
Nurse Communication
2)
Nursing Services
3)
Doctor Communication
4)
Physical Environment
5)
Pain Control
6)
Communication about
medicines
7)
Discharge
Information
8)
Overall rating of
care/Recommendation of hospital to others
Public
reporting of the following additional measures will be included in the Hospital
Quality Alliance’s
Hospital Compare website:
Ø
30-day
post-admission mortality for heart attacks
Ø
30-day
post-admission mortality for heart failure
Ø
Patient-experience
information (based on HCAHPS survey)
Ø
Surgical-care
measures to prevent blood clots
Ø
Surgical-care
measures to prevent infection
If your hospital rating is not what you’d like it to be,
LifeWings can help.
While HCAHPS
survey data is not yet publicly available for individual hospitals, group scores
are available now through the
AHRQ Web site.
Currently, the lowest scores reported have resulted from
communication about medications and discharge information.
Pay-for-Performance and Pay-for-Reporting
In an effort
to reward hospitals scoring higher than peers on performance measures, Congress
and CMS are considering ways to enact pay for performance through Medicare.
The Medicare
Modernization Act (MMA) calls for full Medicare update to be granted only to
those hospitals reporting to CMS the results of certain measures of hospital
performance. In 2007, hospitals needed to report 21 measures or risk a 2%
penalty.
Additional
measures have been added to the 2007 requirements, including post-discharge
rates for heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia; measures of post-surgery
blood clot prevention; measures of processes of care to prevent surgical
infections and ventilator-assisted pneumonia; and measures of the rate of
infections in hospital intensive care units associated with catheters,
intravenous lines, and ventilator use.
Pay-for-Performance and Pay-for-Reporting should work to the advantage of
hospitals that have paid attention to quality and safety measures all along.
LifeWings can help improve your HCAHPS score by:
-
Improving communication and
teamwork among your physicians, staff, and patients – HCAHPS
scores are directly tied to the effectiveness of nurse and physician
relationships and communication. LifeWings training provides your team with the expert
communications skills your patients will really notice, especially in
communication about medicine and discharge information. More effective teams
ultimately improve
patient safety.
-
Reducing undetected and
uncorrected errors that affect your patients and their perception of your
care - HCAHPS results reveal your patient’s willingness to
recommend your hospital to others. LifeWings training gives your teams the
patient
safety tools to cross check one another and correct small slips, trips, and lapses
before they result in
medical errors and affect your patients' opinion of your care.
-
Improving the reliability and
efficiency of your patient care processes - Poor systems affect
the quality of the care your patients receive. Wasted effort, rework, and
delays are seen by your patients and affect their satisfaction survey
responses. Lifewings helps your teams create and implement reliable,
foolproof systems like checklists, standard procedures, and communication
scripting to ensure the right care to the right patient every time.
-
Dramatically improving
physician satisfaction - Satisfied physicians are noticed by your
patients.
Physician satisfaction can have an impact on the quality of the
communication and collaboration with staff and patients. Patients will see
and document on their surveys episodes of poor communication due to
frustration, anger, and dissatisfaction. LifeWings training and tools give
your physicians better teams to work with and a better environment in which
to work.
-
Reducing nurse turnover so
your patients benefit from consistent care - Nursing services are
rated on surveys reported to HCAHPS. LifeWings training produces documented
improvements in
nurse
retention (with turnover as low as 2%) allowing you to ensure your
patients receive consistent, high quality care from established and
experienced nurses on your staff.
>Contact Us Now To
Start Improving Your Hospital's HCAHPS Scores
Helpful
Links:
Sources:
-
The Patient’s
Perspective; Hospitals must report patient-satisfaction data or face a
financial hit; for many it’s just business as usual, for others it poses
some challenges. Special Report: The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare
Providers and Systems hospital survey. Modern Healthcare July 23,
2007
-
Heed these
measures to see your HCAHPS scores rise. Healthcare Strategic Management
August, 2007
-
Going public.
Modern Healthcare May 28, 2007
-
A hospital’s
tale: understanding challenges and strategies associated with data reporting
is key to effectively communicate performance. Healthcare Financial
Management February 2007
-
Nurses,
consumer satisfaction, and pay for performance: when it comes to patient
satisfaction, consumers are likely to choose one hospital over another based
on the way patients are treated -- especially by nurses. Healthcare
Financial Management October 2007
-%20registration.jpg)
