HCAHPS. How patients are changing Health Care
HCAHP. How patients are changing Health Care
HCAHPS stands for Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems. HCAHPS provides a standardized survey instrument and data collection methodology for measuring patients’ perspectives on hospital care. Before HCAHPS there was no standardized way to collect data, and the problem was you could not effectively compare hospitals and care. So care and services could not be effectively judged. So the impact of this Survey is Financial. This influences the amount of money hospitals get from the State and Government.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. People should know beforehand the type and quality of care they will receive. And the health care team should know how they are performing and how they could improve. This will drive up the quality of care and improve the hospital setting for the patients and staff. The down side is not all patients take part in the surveys and the patients who take part were either very happy or very unhappy with the service. Thus the data is not comprehensive and all inclusive. I don’t think with holding funding from hospitals is the answer because this is a very sharp double edged sword. Normally it is the poorer hospitals or communities that suffer the most. In poorer communities the hospitals depend on the Government money in order to remain solvent and keep the hospital doors open. But whether the solution is HCAHPS have definitely improved the quality of care patients receive. I have personally seen the effects of this. Health care staff are more attentive to patients. Patients rounding has improved and so has pain control and specifically the sharing of information has increased. Patients are now more aware of what is happening during their stay and what they could expect. This awareness gives patients better control over the environment. Another positive effect that I have seen is patient education has increased and by this I mean health care staff are spending more time educating their patients on medication, conditions and procedures. Health care is part of the service industry whether we want to believe it or not and the clients have a right to choose and expect a certain level of quality in their care
