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Next fall, hospitals across the United States will report publicly inpatient satisfaction data for the first time.
As required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), BWH started collecting inpatient satisfaction data in October using HCAHPS, a survey tool developed based on research from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and approved through a consensus process overseen by the National Quality Forum. Data collected from October 2006 through June 2007 likely will appear late next fall at www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/
"This will show what we look like as far as inpatient satisfaction when compared to other like-size teaching hospitals across the country," said Troy Tomilonus, manager of Decision Support Systems for the Center for Clinical Excellence.
BWH is analyzing preliminary data collected between October and January. "According to the data so far, we are better than all the benchmarks on every question, except for two questions related to the environment of care," Tomilonus said.
The topics addressed by HCAHPS are similar to those covered by the Press Ganey reports that BWH has conducted since 2000. The HCAHPS survey uses different scales, wording and methodology. CMS and AHRQ developed their own consensus tool as the use of federal funding precludes the use of a vendor tool, such as Press Ganey.
Each year, BWH will send out 1,000 surveys in a two-wave mailing process to collect data. The responses will be broken out into three groups of patients: medical, surgical and obstetric.