In this issue:
1. In Loving Memory: Ariel Adams, 1944 - 2007 (Laurel Office Closed December 11, 2007)
2. HCAHPS Alert. CMS Proposes Plan to Base Payments on HCAHPS Performance
3. HCAHPS Discovery: Do You Need Both to Succeed?
4. Success Story: Employee Satisfaction - One Hospital's Success in Making and Sustaining Improvements
5. Spreading Best Practices: Physician's Perceptions of Consistency of Care
6. HCAHPS Spotlight
7. Ask the Experts
| In Loving Memory: Ariel Adams, 1944 - 2007
 Surrounded by loved ones, Ariel Adams, Vice President of Field Services, passed away on December 1, 2007. Ariel was a patriarch of our organization and will be painfully missed by all of us. He was a great husband, father, grandfather, colleague, teacher, mentor, and friend.
So that all employees have the opportunity to attend the memorial service and say farewell to our colleague and friend, the Laurel office of HealthStream Research will be closed on Tuesday, December 11th. We appreciate your understanding as we take this time and will promptly return all phone calls and emails on December 12th.
|
| HCAHPS Alert. CMS Proposes Plan to Base Payments on HCAHPS Performance
In breaking news this week, CMS released its value-based purchasing program (VBP) proposal that would reduce diagnostic-related group (DRG) payments for Medicare patients, but would also provide a chance to ‘earn’ the money back through high performance or significant improvement on key measures, which now includes HCAHPS performance. Value-based purchasing (VBP), which links payment to performance, is a key policy mechanism that CMS is proposing to transform Medicare from a passive payer of claims to an active purchaser of care.
The proposed timeline is set for implementation in 2010 or 2011, but there is one major thing we’ve learned from our top-performing HCAHPS clients, and that is don’t wait. In one form or another, VBP is coming, and HCAHPS performance will play a key role.
Full Article |
| HCAHPS Discovery: Do You Need Both to Succeed?
How the HCAHPS Survey Compares to Satisfaction Surveys
With the advent of HCAHPS, hospitals are now questioning the need to continue fielding their traditional patient satisfaction surveys. Do they really need to do both? Hospitals that consider discontinuing their traditional patient surveys are often concerned about two issues: “Is HCAHPS a useful survey tool?” and “Is my performance going to change?” In short, does HCAHPS capture the same drivers of the patient experience as previous traditional patient surveys? HealthStream Research has analyzed the data and our research suggests that HCAHPS and patient satisfaction surveys obtain data that are highly related and give hospitals the data they need to make quality improvements.
Full Article |
|
| Success Story: Employee Satisfaction - One Hospital's Success in Making and Sustaining Improvements
Columbus Regional Hospital, Columbus, Indiana
Columbus Regional Hospital is a 225-bed hospital located in Columbus, Indiana. Columbus Regional has always performed well on HealthStream Research’s Employee Insights Survey, and for the past several years they have continued to improve and sustain that improvement. Three years ago Columbus Regional was performing at or above the HealthStream Research National Norm for nearly every item on the survey. Today, they are scoring significantly higher than the HealthStream Research Norm on every item on the survey and are performing at or above the 75th percentile for nearly every item on the survey. We interviewed Vice President of Professional and Support Services Jim Bickel, Director of Human Resources Joe Turco, and HR Manager Judy Mead to find out how Columbus Regional has been able to make and sustain such improvements. They believe that leadership, accountability, communication, and retaining good employees are the major contributors to their employees’ high levels of satisfaction.
Full Article |
| Spreading Best Practices: Physician's Perceptions of Consistency of Care
Part One
HealthStream Research has provided physician satisfaction survey services to healthcare systems and individual hospitals across the U.S. since 1990 and has accumulated the nation’s largest comparative database (with more than 35,000 respondents from over 700 facilities) for physician satisfaction. We recently took a closer look at four hospitals that scored high when physicians were asked to rate the hospital’s efforts to maintain a high quality of care which is consistent across all shifts and floors. This is part one of a four part series that shares best practices in consistency of care.
Full Article |
| HCAHPS Spotlight
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is offering both Introduction to HCAHPS and HCAHPS Update Training sessions to hospitals and survey vendors participating in the CAHPS® Hospital Survey (also known as Hospital CAHPS or HCAHPS; CAHPS is an acronym for "Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems").
Note: Hospitals that have contracted with a survey vendor (such as HealthStream Research) to collect HCAHPS survey data are not required to attend training, but are welcome to do so, space permitting. HealthStream Research’s HCAHPS experts are already registered to take an active role in the HCAHPS Update Training.
Introduction to HCAHPS Training is scheduled for January 28 and 29, 2008, and HCAHPS Update Training is scheduled for January 30 and 31, 2008. Both trainings will be conducted via Webinar. For more information on these training sessions, go to http://www.hcahpsonline.org/traininginfo.aspx or contact HealthStream Research at researchinfo@healthstream.com. |
| Ask the Experts
Q: "Do you have research showing clinical employees are more satisfied than non-clinical employees?"
It is often thought that the perspectives of clinical employees should differ from those of the non-clinician. It is generally assumed that a clinical employee should be more sensitive to factors like cleanliness and tangible resources. HealthStream Research investigated this commonly held belief. We looked at a group of approximately 6700 hospital employees (4300 clinical employees and approximately 2400 non-clinical employees) and compared them on a variety of items on the HealthStream Research Employee Insights survey. On most survey items, clinical and non-clinical employees did not differ in their satisfaction ratings. However, there were twelve (12) areas in which a small but statistically significant difference was noted.
Full Answer |