CMS Finalizes Survey To Determine Patient Satisfaction With Hospital Care
CMS officials as early as June could launch a voluntary survey to determine discharged patients' satisfaction with hospital care, the Wall Street Journal reports. Hospitals will not be obligated to participate, but most that receive Medicare payments are likely to do so because CMS has not "rule[d] out" using the survey results to calculate payments to hospitals, according to the Journal. The final draft of the survey -- which the National Quality Forum, a government advisory panel, must approve next month -- consists of 27 questions, including patient ratings on communication, respect, compassion and demographics. The first draft of the questionnaire had 68 questions and was criticized as being too long, repetitive and expensive to administer. According to the Journal, the survey "isn't designed to gather nuts-and-bolts clinical data" but rather to collect information about "issues ranging from how well doctors and nurses explained treatments and controlled pain to whether rooms were clean and patients got help with bedpans and going to the bathroom." To craft the questions, CMS held 16 focus groups in three cities and tested questions in a pilot program that involved three states. According to the Journal, the inclusion of satisfaction in patient assessments "represents a major expansion in the definition of 'quality' hospital care." Results of the study might be posted later this year on HHS' Hospital Compare Web site. Some hospitals have been "highly supportive" of the program and "favor quick adoption of a standardized survey," according to the Journal. However, other hospitals "think certain ... queries aren't that useful" and debate the ability of CMS to standardize measures of satisfaction, the Journal reports. The American Hospital Association supports the survey but says more research is needed into how to lower the cost and administrative process of administering it (Landro, Wall Street Journal, 4/20).
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