Providing patients with understandable information about their conditions or procedures may affect their perception of care quality as reflected in HCAHPS scores.
A study Emmi Solutions examined HCAHPS scores for patients who had viewed an understandable, multimodal explanation of their conditions or procedures created by Emmi in comparison with patients who had no extra explanations other than those that were provided by their care teams. The study examined results for nearly 67,000 HCAPS scores across 17 hospitals over six years.
Sign up for our FREE E-Weekly for more coverage like this sent to your inbox!
Upon giving patients the extra information, 65 percent of hospitals experienced greater than 5 percent improvement in Top Box Answers, 88 percent experienced greater than 5 percent improvement on physician communication scores and 41 percent experienced greater than 5 percent improvement on whether or not patients would recommend the hospital.
For scores tracked by CMS, 15 or more of the hospitals reported improvement between 2 percent and 11 percent for any given item. These improvements included:
Communication with physicians — 6 percent increase
Communication with nurses — 5 percent increase
Responsiveness of staff — 11 percent increase
Pain Management — 6 percent increase
Communication about medicine — 6 percent increase
Hospital environment — 2 percent increase
Discharge information — 7 percent increase
Overall rating —8 percent increase
Would recommend — 7 percent increase
More Articles on Infection Control & Clinical Quality:
Cleaning Up a Tragedy of the Commons: Disinfection of Shared Equipment
Patients Prefer Physicians as Sources of Treament Information
HR More Concerned With HCAHPS Scores Than Nurses