Thursday, November 8th

Presented by:
Thomas S. Hutchinson
Senior Vice President
HealthStream Research

After exhaustive research with HCAHPS dry runs, pilot studies, and ongoing HCAHPS administration for hundreds of hospitals, HealthStream Research is now ready to present our findings in this information-packed webinar. As CMS is moving from a “Pay for Participation” model to a “Pay for Performance” model, this webinar not only provides a roadmap to improved HCAHPS performance but also a path to improved business outcomes as well.

In just one hour, participants will:

• Get the latest information on CMS trends and recent developments.
• Get an exclusive look at the results of our HCAHPS research.
• Discover the specific best practices that have propelled our top-performing HCAHPS clients to success.
• Gain deep insights into HCAHPS through research on top correlators and the impact of demographics.
• Receive research-based recommendations on improving key HCAHPS items that can lead to improved “Pay for Performance” outcomes.

Presented by Thomas S. Hutchinson, Senior Vice President, this insightful webinar will show you precisely where HCAHPS is headed and how your hospital can craft the most effective patient experience.

Date: Thursday, November 8, 2007
Time: 2:00-3:00 ET
Forum: Online webinar
Cost: Free!

Registration Required. Click the link below to register online. Instructions on accessing the webinar will be provided with your registration confirmation.

Register Online

Waukesha Memorial Hospital, Waukesha, WI

Waukesha Memorial Hospital is a 301-bed facility located in Waukesha, WI. In 2006, Waukesha Memorial scored significantly higher than the HealthStream Research Norm for all three Overall Indicators, including the "Overall Satisfaction" item, the "Overall Satisfaction with Nursing" item, and the "Would Recommend" item. In addition, they recently received a "2006 Excellence through Insight Award" for having one of the highest mean scores for the "Overall Satisfaction" item in the HealthStream Research National Database.

Full Article

Part Four

In a previous Discovery Paper, “What Really Matters to HealthCare Employees?" (May 2007 Random Samples), HealthStream Research looked to our national database to identify factors critical to healthcare employee satisfaction. We shared the top four items to be mostly highly predictive of Overall Satisfaction along with the underlying drivers of each predictor. HealthStream Research has focused on one of the top four predictors—Employee Recognition—and interviewed four hospitals in our national employee database that scored high in the area of “How well administrators treat, appreciate and support employees”. This is part four of a four part series highlighting the best practices of these four hospitals.

Full Article

How to Build Lasting Organizational Competency

Presented by: Lynn Howe, RN, MS, CEN, CCRN

At the recent HealthStream Research conference, there were numerous presentations that focused on implementing effective competency and orientation programs. To expand on these crucial topics, we are excited to announce this insightful webinar, which is designed to help you discover how to implement solutions that align with the Forces of Magnetism.

Also, be one of the first to see the new HealthStream Competency Center demonstration. The HealthStream Competency Center helps organizations assess, maintain, demonstrate and continually improve staff competency, demonstrate the link between competency and patient safety, show staffing effectiveness, achieve strategic recruitment and retention goals, create performance plans, and much more.

BONUS!
Sign-up today for this Free Webinar and receive a white paper offering 5 recommendations to increase the impact of your healthcare organization’s competency program: Increasing the Impact of Your Healthcare Organization’s Competency Program

Three Dates to Choose From:
• Wednesday, November 7, 2007, 4:30pm-5:30pm (CST)
• Tuesday, November 13, 2007, Noon-1pm (CST)
• Friday, November 16, 2007, Noon-1pm (CST)

Forum: Online webinar
Cost: Free!

Registration Required. Click the link below to register online. Instructions on accessing the webinar will be provided with your registration confirmation.

January 2008 Training Registration Now Open (as of 10/30/2007)
Information on the upcoming HCAHPS Training, scheduled for January 28-31, 2008, is now available here. Registration for the training sessions being offered via Webinar can be completed online beginning October 30, 2007. Click here to register.

Public Reporting of Hospital Cleanliness and Quietness (as of 10/19/2007)
Extensive consumer testing of HCAHPS reporting formats has been conducted by CMS in preparation for the initial public reporting of HCAHPS results on the Hospital Compare website in March 2008. As a result of this testing, CMS has decided to report the former 'cleanliness and quietness' composite as two separate items: "Cleanliness of the Hospital Environment," and "Quietness of the Hospital Environment."

Public reporting of participating hospitals' HCAHPS results will therefore consist of the following ten items:

• Six composite topics
• Two individual topics ('cleanliness' and 'quietness')
• Two overall ratings

In addition, CMS will report the 'number of completed surveys' and the 'survey response rate' for each participating hospital.

Next Data Submission: January 9, 2008
January 9, 2008 is the data submission deadline for patients discharged in July, August, and September 2007. September 2007 Dry Run data also must be submitted by this date.

Next Dry Run: (for any hospital not yet participating)
The next HCAHPS Dry Run is planned for December 2007.

Public Reporting
For HCAHPS data collected between October 2006 and June 2007, Preview Reports will be available through QNet in March 2008. This will be the first public reporting of data for those hospitals that choose to have their data appear on www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov

Q: What is the difference between the terms ‘patient advocacy’ and ‘patient advocate’? We’ve seen both in many healthcare publications.

Confusion can easily accompany these terms; despite their linguistic similarity, they can mean completely different things.

• ‘Patient advocacy’ is a term often used to describe the likelihood that a patient will recommend your hospital to others, i.e. advocating the use of your hospital. The HCAHPS survey instrument measures patient advocacy with the following question:

- Would you recommend this hospital to your friends and family?

• A ‘patient advocate’ is most often associated with the role of nurses, although HealthStream Research takes the position that all employees, regardless of title or duties, should see themselves as a patient advocate. The American Nurses Association (ANA) includes advocacy in its definition of nursing as "the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations.”

The ANA's Code of Ethics for Nurses includes the following language relating to being a patient advocate:

- The nurse's primary commitment is to the patient, whether an individual, family, group, or community.
- The nurse promotes, advocates for, and strives to protect the health, safety, and rights of the patient.

To truly succeed, hospitals must simultaneously strive for the strongest market position, highest productivity, an engaging organizational climate, the best patient satisfaction scores, and a strong bottom line. HealthStream Research’s 2007 Conference Creating Excellence in Healthcare in Nashville, Tennessee, was a fantastic success in helping healthcare administrators achieve these challenging—yet attainable—goals.

This year’s general sessions featured speakers that inspired, educated, and thrilled attendees. Michael Abrashoff kicked off the conference with his stories of achieving the impossible. After he walked the crowd through the challenges, obstacles, and lessons learned while transforming the worst performing ship in the Navy into #1, achieving the impossible in healthcare didn’t seem quite so impossible any more. Brian Lee, CEO of Custom Learning Systems Group, showed everyone the power of accountability in patient satisfaction. The conference was wrapped up by highly sought-after speaker Andrea Gappmayer of the Carrot Culture Group. A leading authority on employee recognition, Andrea took the enthusiastic crowd on a journey through the most effective ways to use recognition to achieve amazing successes.

The breakout sessions provided not only great insights and best practices, but they also provided a model for how presentations should be done. Packed with humor, energy, music, video, hard numbers, and actionable recommendations, clients were quite impressed with their experiences.

The highlight of the conference was the Dinner and Awards Ceremony. This was the opportunity to recognize those hospitals and healthcare systems that successfully turned insight into action. Many clients were in attendance to personally accept their award while an energetic audience cheered them on.

Mark your calendar For the 2008 Conference!
We’ve been pouring through (and enjoying!) the overwhelmingly positive feedback received from attendees. But just like we tell our clients, one should never rest on the laurels of success. As great as the 2007 conference was, HealthStream Research will make sure that 2008 promises to be even better. In 2008, the HealthStream Learning Summit and the HealthStream Research conference will be combined into one event. Mark your calendars to join us September 2-5, 2008 at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee!