HealthStream Research’s Annual Conference is packed with education, information, and ideas that will keep you motivated long after the conference ends. We have three inspiring general sessions, 20 breakout sessions, a pre-conference workshop, an onsite demonstration of the HealthStream Learning Center™ and plenty of networking opportunities that will send you back to work energized, informed and engaged. Take advantage of our early-registration rate to save!

To access the full conference brochure, click here.

To register online, click here.

Mark your Calendar!
October 21-23, 2007
The Sheraton Music City Hotel
http://www.sheratonmusiccity.com.
Nashville, Tennessee 

Timed to Follow HealthStream Research’s Annual Conference, Continue the Week of Service Excellence with The HealthCare Service Excellence Conference, Oct 24-26, 2007

HealthStream Research has joined with Custom Learning Systems Group (CLS) to create an entire week of Service Excellence. After HealthStream Research’s Annual Conference, CLS will follow with their HealthCare Service Excellence Conference at the same location. This additional conference will zero-in on leading edge strategies focusing on compassion, harmony, and loving leadership. The keynote speakers and session leaders will be highlighting leadership skills for nurses, physicians, and administrators. The conference will be taking place October 24-26, 2007, at the Sheraton Music City, Nashville, TN. The conference (the 8th annual) is timed to follow HealthStream Research's Creating Excellence in Healthcare Conference, October 21-23, at the same hotel. When combined with HealthStream Research’s Annual Conference, you’ll have six continuous days of best practices, engaging and informative speakers, access to experts, and networking with colleagues.

Everything will be focused on creating excellence in healthcare, and maximizing HCAHPS survey results. The 50 keynotes, general sessions, workshops, and breakouts are presented by progressive service excellence professionals and HCAHPS experts from across the continent

For more details about the follow-up CLS conference, or to register, click here

Lancaster General Hospital, Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Located in Lancaster Pennsylvania, Lancaster General has served its community for over 100 years. According to COO Marion McGowan, strong community support is one reason Lancaster General has been able to develop and maintain successful relationships with their physicians. Lancaster General has been the recipient of several prestigious awards through the years, including recognition as one of the 50 Best Hospitals in the U.S. in five categories in the edition of U.S. News and World Report. Other awards include a Distinguished Hospital Award for Patient Safety, presented by HealthGrades, and recognition in Training magazine as one of the nation’s leading organizations in human capital development. In 2002, Lancaster General was recognized as a Magnet hospital. Also, Lancaster General Hospital consistently performs at the top of our national physician database of more than 660 hospitals when looking at overall satisfaction with the hospital and physician satisfaction with nursing care.

Full Article

Tuesday, August 21st

Presented by:
Bonnie Lowry
Senior Consultant
HealthStream Research

There are hospitals that consistently perform at the top, receive awards, and hold a significant market share in their primary service area. Now, in the latest webinar in HealthStream Research’s Knowledge Network series, you’ll have the opportunity to discover what these hospitals are doing to consistently remain a top performer. The analysts at HealthStream Research have examined the hospitals in the top 25% of our database and uncovered their Best Management Practices – practices that you can implement in your hospital. Presented by Senior Consultant, Bonnie Lowry, you’ll also see why focusing on these practices can have an incredible impact on the financial performance of your hospital.

Date: Tuesday, August 21, 2007
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

It is vital to know what kinds of things are important to physicians as it relates to their practice in the hospital. What factors are related to physicians’ satisfaction with the hospital as a place to practice medicine? Do these factors vary by physician specialty or are they constant across different types of physicians? These are some of the questions that led to the current discovery paper.

Full Article

Each month, Spotlight on HCAHPS will highlight the latest news, changes, updates, and deadlines that relate to HCAHPS administration. This will also be the forum where questions from readers about HCAHPS will be addressed. This month, we have provided key dates and deadlines that HCAHPS participants should be familiar with.

• August 15, 2007 Deadline for RHQDAPU Notice of Participation Form
The FY 2008 Reporting Hospital Quality Data Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU) Notice of Participation Form has been posted on the QualityNet Exchange Website. The form must be completed and submitted to the hospital's QIO for their state by August 15, 2007. Click here to view or download the RHQDAPU Notice of Participation Form. Our dedicated HCAHPS experts will be thrilled to assist any hospital with questions about completing the form.

• September 2007 Dry Run
A Dry Run of the HCAHPS survey is scheduled for hospitals that have not yet participated in HCAHPS. This Dry Run will include eligible discharges from the month of September 2007. Survey data collected for the September 2007 Dry Run must be successfully submitted to CMS via QualityNet Exchange by January 9, 2008. Of course, hospitals that have contracted HealthStream Research as their HCAHPS partner don’t have to worry about submitting results to CMS—we take care of data submission for all HCAHPS clients.

• January 2008—Hospital Can Preview Reports of October-June 2007 Results
Hospitals that participated in the October 2007 Dry Run will be able to preview their results in January 2008, before they are made public in March 2008.

• March 2008—Public Reporting of October-June 2007 Results
CMS is scheduled to begin public reporting of October-June 2007 results in March 2008. Hospitals may ask to have their results suppressed. If you have questions about how to apply for data suppression, please contact your project manager.


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

Part One

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 recently looked at 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 one of a four part series highlighting the best practices of these four hospitals.

Full Article

Dr. Randy Carden, Senior Research Consultant

"What is meant by the term percentile and how should it be interpreted?"

Percentiles are often misunderstood. A percentile is a point on a scale below which a certain percent of scores fall. For example, the 75th percentile is the point in a distribution of scores below which 75 percent of scores fall. The 25th percentile is the point below which 25 percent of scores fall. The 50th percentile, also called the median (the middlemost score), is the point at which 50 percent of scores fall beneath.

Therefore, when interpreting your percentile scores, remember that higher is better. If your percentile is around 50, then you are performing better that about half of the database. If your percentile is around 66 or 67, you are performing better than about two-thirds of the database. If the score on one of your reports indicates that your hospital is at the 92nd percentile on a survey item rating nurses you should celebrate because you have performed better than 92 percent of the hospitals in the database on that item.

However, if you scored at the 5th percentile on nursing, you have a lot of work to do!


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.

For the second year, Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell has launched the “First Day of School Honor Roll” where companies are listed that support their employees’ decision to take their child(ren) to school on the first day of the academic year. HealthStream Research firmly believes in the importance of families getting involved in a child’s education from the very start, by touring the school, meeting teachers, and joining the parent organization. The Mayor’s Honor Roll recognizes Nashville businesses that have a policy in place encouraging their employees to take their child to school on the First Day.

One of HealthStream’s corporate values is our dedication to the constant development of a learning culture. Learning and education permeate everything we do at HealthStream and, therefore, we have enthusiastically agreed to the Mayor’s request. HealthStream’s headquarters is located in Nashville, but our dedication to learning led us to extend this event to all four of our offices across the nation. Our employees with school-age children have been given the flexibility needed to arrive at work one to two hours later on first day of school.

To read more about Mayor Purcell’s Honor Roll and view HealthStream’s listing, you can go to http://www.nashville.gov/mocy/firstday/2007/docs/fd_honor_roll.pdf.