Mike Leavitt, secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services, has unveiled the addition of patient satisfaction data to Medicare's three-year-old Hospital Compare Web site. The changes are part of a continuing effort by HHS to improve the measurement of health quality and, in the process, to spur better care, writes Theo Francis in the Wall Street Journal's Health Blog.
What would have happened if, a year ago, you barged into the doctor's lounge and asked the room, "How important is patients' perception of the care they receive at our hospital? Not the actual quality of care based on objective quality measurements and outcomes, but how our patients feel they were treated during their stay?" I'm guessing you'd have gotten some blank stares. And what if you asked that same question today? I hope (though I'm not certain) that you'd get a different reaction.
Unless you've been hiding under a bush (or in a doctor's lounge, perhaps) you've heard the news that Health and Human Services has added patient satisfaction data to the Hospital Compare Web site. From the Wall Street Journal to the small-town Pennysaver, reporters are having a field day digging through the data to see how the hospitals they cover fared.
The data is based on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, which asks patients to answer questions related to 10 topics, such as whether doctors and nurses treated the patient with respect, how quickly staff responded when the patient pressed the call button, whether the patient's room and bathroom were kept clean, whether the area around the room was quiet at night, and--perhaps most tellingly--whether or not they would recommend the hospital to friends and family.
It's word-of-mouth on steroids.
These 10 topics are the kinds of things folks speak to each other about after a stay in the hospital. They ask "How were you treated?" They ask "Were you in pain?" They do not ask "What's that hospital's MRSA infection rate?" or "How did the hospital do on its last unannounced Joint Commission survey?"
It's easier for reporters to write about patient satisfaction than it is for them to write about objective quality measures and outcomes. And it's a whole lot easier for readers to understand, as well.
This week a lot of hospital marketers (and perhaps a few doctors, too) are looking at the headlines in their local paper, worrying over a negative slant or celebrating over positive news.
But I also bet they're wondering whether potential patients will actually take note, let alone act upon the new information.
If you walk into the local coffee shop a year from now and ask the room, "Which hospital should you go to if you want to have the best experience? Which has the most satisfied patients?" What do you think would happen?
The World Health Organization said that dozens of Gaza residents have died waiting for medical treatment because of delays in obtaining permits to enter Israel. The WHO listed 32 cases in which Gaza residents died because they could not obtain urgent medical treatment.
San Francisco has revealed a detailed look at the renovation of San Francisco General Hospital. The $887.4 million project is set to go before voters in November, and plans include a nine-story building with 284 patient beds on the edge of the current hospital campus. The old hospital is considered seismically unsafe and under state law must be renovated or replaced by 2013. Under the plan, it would remain standing and would hold psychiatric beds, clinical laboratories, outpatient facilities, and the cafeteria.
In popular California markets such as Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, space for medical offices is at a premium and construction of medical facilities is at a standstill. As a result, buyers are spending enormous sums on offices that they hope will repay their investments over the long term. A four-story, 63,276-square-foot building in Beverly Hills, populated mostly by high-profile plastic surgeons, was recently sold for nearly $55 million.
For eight years, a Los Angeles clinic has reached out to Mayas and sought the trust of a community that has generally been reluctant to seek Western medical treatment. Some of the issues the clinic encounters with Guatemalan patients are commonly dealt with by doctors and nurses in California working with indigenous populations from Mexico and other parts of Latin America. Healthcare providers must realize that patients may come to a hospital or a clinic but are also seeking medical guidance from community elders and taking herbal medicines, experts say.
Legislative fights over Georgia's regulation of healthcare may end with a compromise plan suddenly surging toward a House vote. The measure would help general surgeons open ambulatory surgery centers and would let hospitals build parking decks and other non-clinical projects without state approval. It also would lift obstetrics restrictions on a few hospitals now allowed to deliver babies only in cases of emergencies.
Doylestown (PA) Hospital has announced that it had improved its financial position with the $27.5 million sale of its majority interest in the Health & Wellness Center, coupled with a recent sale of $237 million in new revenue bonds. The Health & Wellness Center sale raises a net $3 million in cash and makes it easier for the hospital to move forward with a $63 million, 40-bed emergency facility to replace its current facility, said Doylestown representatives.
Aetna has announced it will begin offering individual health insurance policies through the Chamber Insurance Trust, reaching about 40,000 businesses and 79 chambers of commerce in Connecticut. The program is aimed at sole proprietors of businesses and workers who don't have insurance through an employer, and could help reduce the number of uninsured residents in the state, said the administrator of the trust.
TennCare stands to lose millions of dollars in funding because of new federal rules that aim to close loopholes that have allowed states to shift more of their share of responsibility for funding Medicaid to the federal government. One rule would change the definition of a public hospital, leaving Metro General in Nashville, TN, as the only one among 24 hospitals in Tennessee whose charity care expenses could be used by TennCare to draw federal matching dollars.
