Solid HCAHPS Scores Only a Start

This article appears in the August 2012 issue of HealthLeaders magazine.

Officials at Metro Health Hospital in Wyoming, Mich., have been extremely pleased with the hospital's HCAHPS scores.

"We do very well in HCAHPS, and one of the things is we have a beautiful new hospital," says Cindy Allen-Fedor, RN, MPA, CPHQ, executive vice president for quality. "Just being in a beautiful place doesn't necessarily make a patient happy, but it's a nice place to be," she says of patients' attitudes about the hospital.

The 208-staffed-bed, $150 million medical center with six floors for patient care opened its doors in 2007 with what hospital officials described as "spacious patient rooms, curved corridors, plentiful natural light" as well as expansive outdoor views.

The facility has enough amenities to help the HCAHPS scores, Allen-Fedor says. For instance, patients gave the hospital higher ratings than the national average for being quiet, and the bathrooms were considered much better, too. For the most part, patients liked nurse and physician communication. Overall, 81% of patients gave Metro Health a high rating, compared to the national average for all hospitals of 68%.