“I don’t see how an organization can get all the things done as part of Magnet certification without a partner like HealthStream.” - Michelle Hammerly, Education Director, CHRISTUS Hospital - St. Elizabeth & St. Mary

Has your hospital or healthcare organization done something worth shouting about? Are you ready to share your Success Story with the HealthStream community, packed with healthcare leaders and professionals just like you? HealthStream is committed to connecting everyone in the HealthStream community to your successes and best practices.

Go to http://www.healthstream.com/mysuccess/ and you’ll find an easy to use form that lets you provide the details of your success. HealthStream will transform your approved submission into a professionally-formatted Success Story document, which you can then use in your own marketing and recruiting efforts.

To view a user-generated Success Story on how CHRISTUS Hospital - St. Elizabeth & St. Mary achieved Magnet status, click here.

HealthStream Research Expands Suite of HCAHPS-Aligned Surveys
HealthStream Research has aligned our entire Patient Insights product line around HCAHPS and other CAHPS surveys. Currently, we offer the following HCAHPS-aligned surveys:

• Inpatient
• Outpatient/Same Day Surgery
• Emergency Department
• Physician Office Patients
• Home Health
• Inpatient Rehab
• Outpatient Rehab
• Behavioral Care
• Long-Term Care/Nursing Home NEW
• Hospice NEW

CMS is already in the process of implementing additional surveys, and more CAHPS tools will be available in the next few years. The best way for the hospitals to prepare is to start using HCAHPS-aligned survey instruments now. In doing so, future transitions to an official CAHPS survey will be much easier.

Summer Hospital Compare Public Report Now Available!
The Hospital Compare website has been refreshed with Summer Public Report scores (www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov). New HCAHPS results for 2,565 hospitals that voluntarily surveyed and submitted data for patients discharged from October 2006 through September 2007 are now available. This is the first time CMS released four quarters of HCAHPS results, which will be the norm in the future, with the oldest quarter of data rolling off as the newest quarter rolls on.

Visits to Hospital Compare Website Soar
Web hits to the Hospital Compare website exploded following the HHS/Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) consumer information/media campaign in late May. Page views for Hospital Compare went from 2.3 million in March, to 2.5 million in April, 3.6 million in May, and 11.5 million in June.

Current Upload Status
We are currently uploading the results to QNet for patients discharged in April, May and June 2008. We will update our clients as uploads are all completed.

Additional Upcoming Data Submission Deadlines Posted
2008 and 2009 deadlines for HCAHPS data submission are as follows:

• October 8, 2008 is the data submission deadline for patients discharged in April, May and June 2008. June 2008 Dry Run data also must be submitted by this date.

• January 14, 2009 is the data submission deadline for patients discharged in July, August and September 2008. September 2008 Dry Run data also must be submitted by this date.

• April 8, 2009 is the data submission deadline for patients discharged in October, November and December 2008. December 2008 Dry Run data also must be submitted by this date.

• July 8, 2009 is the data submission deadline for patients discharged in January, February and March 2009. March 2009 Dry Run data also must be submitted by this date.

• October 14, 2009 is the data submission deadline for patients discharged in April, May and June 2009. June 2009 Dry Run data also must be submitted by this date.

HCAHPS and IPPS Payment Provisions
CMS issued a final rule to update the hospital inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) for fiscal year (FY) 2008. The final rule takes significant steps to improve the accuracy of Medicare's payment under the acute care hospital inpatient prospective payment system, while providing additional incentives for hospitals to engage in quality improvement efforts. In particular, this rule affects the submission of hospital quality data.

IPPS hospitals participating in the Reporting Hospital Quality Data Annual Payment Update program (RHQDAPU-eligible "subsection (d) hospitals") that fail to report the required quality measures (which include the HCAHPS patient perspective survey) in a form and manner, and at a time, specified by the Secretary could, for FY 2008, receive an APU that is reduced by 2.0 percentage points. Non-IPPS hospitals can voluntarily participate in HCAHPS, though doing so will not affect their Medicare payment. To view the display copy of the Acute Inpatient PPS final rule (CMS-1533-FC) for FY 2008, go to: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/AcuteInpatientPPS/IPPS/ on the CMS website.


For HCAHPS questions or assistance at HealthStream Research:

Bobbi Rogers
Client Services Consultant at (301) 575-9300
bobbi.rogers@healthstream.com

Briley Price
Client Services Manager at (615) 224-1550
briley.price@healthstream.com

For questions or assistance at Quality Net Exchange:
Quality Net Exchange at qnetsupport@ifmc.sdps.org
1-866-288-8912

Official HCAHPS Website for content, announcements, updates, & reminders:
http://www.hcahpsonline.org/

Question:
I read your response to the question, “For benchmarking, why do you recommend using the overall satisfaction question on the employee and physician surveys instead of the would recommend question?” You stated that overall satisfaction was the best question for employee and physician surveys and provided excellent supporting insights. Do you think this same logic could be applied to the HCAHPS questions? In other words, if a hospital was going to pick one question for their evaluation, would you recommend using the top-box percentage on the overall satisfaction question or the percentage of ‘Always’ on the Likelihood to Recommend question?

Answer Provided by:
Randy Carden, EdD, Senior Research Consultant, HealthStream Research


Thanks for your follow-up question. (You can access the previous Ask the Experts article here)

I think that the same logic applies to the HCAHPS survey. The Overall Hospital item is a summative question wherein you rate your entire experience with the hospital. The HCAHPS Recommend question has the same issues as physician and employee surveys. Although the forthcoming value-based purchasing model seems to not favor any question over another, if a hospital wants one item to use, I think the Overall Hospital item is the best.

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 patient 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 supports the use of the Overall Satisfaction item.