Congratulations to the 2007 winners of the HealthStream Research Excellence through Insight awards! The awards are for Patient, Employee, Physician, and Consumer studies. To win, the client had to be at or above the 75th percentile rank, and they were given awards based on their percentile rank and mean scores.

Award Winners Announced

Mark your calendars! HealthStream Research’s 2008 Summit will be at the Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee, September 2-5, 2008.

Our Summit registration is now open and we encourage you to register sooner rather than later. We are excited about Summit 2008; several features make it particularly unique and important to attend.

First is the focus of the conference: Creating Excellence in Healthcare. From our expanded roster of keynote speakers, customer presentations, and breakout sessions to networking and product input sessions, the entire conference is focused on one thing: how you can help to create excellence in healthcare. When you attend this year’s Summit, you will hear from leading innovators and walk away with ideas and action plans of your own.

Second is the expanded nature of the conference. For the first time, HealthStream is combining its Research and Learning conferences. This means that you will have the option of gathering an entirely new library of resources to support you and your organization in creating excellence in healthcare.

Third is the unique networking opportunity at the conference. No other conference provides such immediate access to thought leadership across critical healthcare topics, in-depth training and support, and high-impact networking and brainstorming opportunities. You are part of a powerful community that is, collectively, improving the quality of healthcare—and you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate at Summit 2008.

We are currently accepting “early bird” registrations, which entitles you to a $100 immediate discount off of the regular registration fee of $499 if you register before May 31, 2008.

Register Here

Presented by:
Joe Turco
Director of Human Resources
Columbus Regional Hospital

Columbus Regional Hospital’s leadership team understands that employee satisfaction is the foundation for achieving high patient satisfaction. In this powerful presentation, you’ll learn how Columbus Regional Hospital has created a continuous cycle of employee satisfaction measurement and improvement through a proactive communication and feedback process. This approach has enabled Columbus Regional Hospital to connect everyone from the break room to the boardroom. Participants will come away with best practices for making improvements to employees’ well-being, satisfaction, and motivation based on employee feedback.

Mr. Turco provides strategic planning for the Human Resources function, including employment, retention, compensation, benefits, employee growth and development. He is also responsible for the Employee Assistance Program, Employee Health, and AV services.

Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Time: 2:00-3:00 ET
Forum: Online webinar
Cost: $99 per log-in - the number of participants per log-in is unlimited. Clients save $50 and pay only $49! Email us at researchinfo@healthstream.com for the special client invitation code.

Registration Required. Click the link below to register online. Payment is required at the time of registration via credit card. Instructions on accessing the webinar will be provided with your registration confirmation.

Register Online

Presented by:
Thomas B. Valuk, M.D., J.D.
Medical Officer and Senior Advisor, Center for Medicare Management

CMS continues to move from HCAHPS ‘pay for participation’ to the Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) model of ‘pay for performance.’ The most consistent factor in HCAHPS success seen by HealthStream Research’s top-performing clients has been proactively preparing for CMS developments before they became requirements. Now is the time for healthcare organizations to prepare for VBP, and this month’s webinar will be presented by CMS advisor and VBP expert, Dr. Thomas Valuk.

In just one hour, participants will gain a deeper understanding of:

• CMS’ Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Principles
• CMS’ VBP Demonstrations and Pilots
• CMS’ VBP Programs
• Value-Driven Health Care
• Horizon Scanning and Opportunities for Participation

Dr. Tomas Valuck is a Medical Officer and Senior Advisor to the Director of the Center for Medicare management (CMM) at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). He advises CMS leadership on clinical and policy issues related to Medicare’s payment systems and quality initiatives, particularly pay for performance. Recently, Dr. Valuck served as the Director of CMS’ Special Program Office of Value-Based purchasing, which launched Medicare’s physician and hospital pay-for-performance initiatives.


Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Time: 3:00-4:00 ET
Forum: Online webinar
Cost: $99 per log-in - the number of participants per log-in is unlimited. Clients save $50 and pay only $49! Email us at researchinfo@healthstream.com for the special client invitation code.

Registration Required. Click the link below to register online. Payment is required at the time of registration via credit card. Instructions on accessing the webinar will be provided with your registration confirmation.

Register Online

Measuring the satisfaction and engagement of your employees without sharing and reviewing the results of the research with your employees can have a negative affect on your retention and future satisfaction scores. The results are there, but if not openly acknowledged and shared, employees begin to question and doubt the intent of the survey. The best actions come from the best insights, and results can only transform into insights when they are examined, shared, and reviewed with (and by) everyone throughout the organization. HealthStream Research examined its national database of Employee Insights Pulse Survey results to explore the differences between organizations that did review the results of their previous survey and those that did not. The difference in performance between these groups is statistically significant.

Full Article

Question:
For benchmarking, why do you recommend using the overall satisfaction question on the employee and physician surveys instead of the “would recommend” question?

Answer Provided by:
Dr. Randy Carden
Director of Research Service, HealthStream Research

HealthStream Research’s Physician Insights survey and Employee Insights survey measure multiple dimensions related to satisfaction with the hospital. Two of our key items are the “Overall Satisfaction” item and the “Would Recommend” item. By design, we use the Overall Satisfaction item as our primary benchmark. We feel that Overall Satisfaction is the single best item when comparing across hospitals and against a single reference point.

The overall satisfaction question has the employee or physician rate his/her experience with the hospital. This question is less influenced by outside factors and is more of a summative perception of their experience inside the hospital.

On the other hand, the Would Recommend item may be more influenced by factors outside of the hospital. For example, this question is related to community reputation, the number of other hospitals in the region, advertising, etc…

Therefore, when comparing hospitals against hospitals or hospitals against a corporate or national benchmark, it is best to use a standard that is not influenced by factors outside of the hospital. This logic tends to rule out the use of the Would Recommend item and supports the use of something more standardized such as the Overall Satisfaction item.



Do you have a question you’d like to send to our team of experts? Send an email to researchinfo@healthstream.com, and our interdisciplinary team of experts will provide you with a detailed answer. Specify if you wish to remain anonymous.