Post Acute Network Spotlight - Creating Sustained Improvements in the Patient Satisfaction Survey Process

Dallas, TX, September 01, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Patient satisfaction is a critical metric in health care. It helps organizations gauge how closely they are meeting their customer’s expectations. In other words, quality from the patient’s perspective. Several years ago, CMS intensified their focus on patient satisfaction. Beginning in 2002, CMS partnered with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), to develop and test the HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) survey. Starting in July of 2007, CMS added a financial incentive for hospitals to collect and report publicly report this information (CMS.gov, April 2011).

Industry stakeholders all seem to agree on the importance of measuring patient satisfaction. As important as this metric is, many executives find themselves struggling with capturing this data on a consistent and timely basis. Most have employed creating methods of trying to capture this information. Some provide a questionnaire to patients at the time of discharge and encourage them to drop it in a self-addressed envelope that is returned either to the hospital or to a third-party vendor. Others encourage patients to fill out the questionnaire prior to departing the hospital. Still others make post-discharge telephone calls to try to obtain satisfaction data. It seems that despite their best efforts, return rates continue to fall short of the mark. Faced with disappointing results, leaders often resort to even more creative but labor intense processes to try to boost returns.

Hospitals are not the only ones struggling with patient satisfaction returns. Other health care organizations find themselves in the same position. Long-term acute care hospitals, rehabilitation hospitals, skilled-nursing facilities, home health companies and others employ similar strategies with comparable results.

As if getting the surveys returned were not difficult enough, once they are returned, getting meaningful data so the organization can act on it timely is another challenge. Hospitals may receive reports 30 to 90 days following the discharge month. This is precious time that can be used to begin developing and implementing improvement plans but instead is wasted waiting for results to be tabulated.

So, what is the answer? How can the patient satisfaction process be improved to become more efficient and timely? A new product may provide the answer.

Introducing ePatSat. A product designed to revolutionize the way patient satisfaction surveys are collected and processed. ePatSat leverages today’s technology to provide health care organizations with powerful real-time data that can effectively drive improvement processes.

Post Acute Network has the exclusive Q&A session with the President of Solar Flare Software, Inc., Tim Wallace. During the session, Mr. Wallace said, “having more than 10 years experience in the industry... we believe that we have created the most efficient and cost effective way to evaluate and improve the patient experience.”

Visit the Post Acute Network today to read the entire transcript.

www.postacutenetwork.com

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