Welcome
March 31, 2009
Welcome again to
HCAHPS Executive Insight, the gold button on
www.hcahpsonline.org.
In March, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) refreshed the HCAHPS
results on the
Hospital Compare website (
www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov).
This marks the fifth time that HCAHPS results have been publicly reported, as well
as the first public reporting for nearly one thousand hospitals that began participating
in HCAHPS in July 2007. The latest HCAHPS results are based on patients discharged
between July 2007 and June 2008 at 3,711 hospitals. Some highlights include:
- The number of hospitals participating has increased by 995 (37%) since the previous
public reporting (December 2008)
- The March 2009 results are based on HCAHPS surveys from more than 2.2 million patients
- In March, we rolled off HCAHPS data from Second Quarter 2007, while rolling on data
from Second Quarter 2008. The result of this quarterly updating process is that all
of the data used in the inaugural March 2008 public reporting have now rolled out
of public reporting
- The March 2009 public reporting is the first in which hospitals paid under the Inpatient
Prospective Payment System (IPPS) can no longer suppress the public reporting of
their HCAHPS results
A summary table of state and national HCAHPS results, and information on how to
interpret them, can be found below at
Summary of HCAHPS Results.
News and Notes from the HCAHPS Project Team
March 2009 also marks the first anniversary of the public reporting of HCAHPS results.
Since March 2008, the number of participating hospitals has increased by 1,190 (47%).
CMS and the HCAHPS Project Team continue to analyze HCAHPS data and regularly present
research findings. A recently published article explores the logic and methodology
of both the patient-mix and survey mode adjustments incorporated in HCAHPS results
(Elliott, M.N., A.M. Zaslavsky, E. Goldstein, W. Lehrman, K. Hambarsoomians, M.K.
Beckett, and L. Giordano. 2009. "Effects of Survey Mode, Patient Mix, and Nonresponse
on CAHPS Hospital Survey Scores."
Health Services Research 44: 501-518).
The HCAHPS survey featured prominently at the CAHPS Users Group Meeting (UGM) held
in Phoenix in December 2008. Please visit the UGM website (
https://www.cahps.ahrq.gov/content/community/events/Download%20UGM%20Presentation%20Slides%20-HTML%20Page%2011-20.htm)
to view slide presentations on recent HCAHPS updates, the experience and advice
of hospitals that self-administer the survey, and on ways hospitals use HCAHPS for
quality improvement.
A new version of the HCAHPS survey protocols,
Quality Assurance Guidelines, V4.0,
was published in February and can be found on the HCAHPS On-Line website. The HCAHPS
Project Team also posts Bulletins on the HCAHPS On-Line website to expand upon or
clarify issues that have arisen about survey administration.
We encourage participating hospitals and their survey vendors to be aware of the
regularly recurring dates for data submission. For the latest, please see
Key Upcoming Dates below.
And as always, we invite you to share (and re-share) the material presented on
HCAHPS
Executive Insight. But please, when you do, include the following citation:
Thank you for visiting
HCAHPS Executive Insight,and please continue to
do so as we update and add new content. If you have any comments or suggestions
for HEI, please send us an email at
hcahps@azqio.sdps.org.
Sincerely,
Bill Lehrman and Liz Goldstein, Co-editors
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
Key Upcoming Date
Data collected for the HCAHPS survey must be submitted to the HCAHPS warehouse,
via My QualityNet, by or before the deadline posted on the HCAHPS website. It is
imperative that data be submitted correctly by the deadline in order for hospitals
to meet RHQDAPU requirements. Once the warehouse closes, data cannot be submitted
or changed in any way. CMS strongly suggests that data be submitted at least 48
hours prior to the deadline, which should allow time for resubmission if there were
an error in the original submission. Hospitals are strongly encouraged to promptly
inspect their Data Submission Report and/or HCAHPS Feedback Reports to confirm their
data were accepted into the data warehouse.
The next deadline for submission of HCAHPS data (January, February and March 2009) is July 8, 2009.
Summary of HCAHPS Results
A summary table of HCAHPS results for patients discharged between July 2007 and
June 2008 is available through the link below. This table contains the average scores
of participating hospitals in the most positive, or "top box," category for each
of the ten publicly reported HCAHPS measures. For example, the column labeled
"Comm.
with Nurses" displays the percent of patients who reported that their nurses
"Always" communicated well. Also shown is the number of participating hospitals
and the survey response rate for hospitals in each state and in the nation.
To view and/or download the table please click
here.
For comparative purposes, summary results from all previous public reportings of
HCAHPS results can be found below in the archive section.
To view the full set of current results on each HCAHPS measure, and find brief information
on survey administration, methodology, etc., please visit the
"Survey of Patients'
Hospital Experiences" section of the
Hospital Compare website
(
http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/Hospital)
Archive: Summary Table of HCAHPS Results
Date of Public Reporting Months Included