Acute Care Hospitals At Bay County Are Gulf Coast Regional Medical Center Essay

The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers (HCAHPS) began in 2006 with a 27 question survey that is distributed to discharged patients. This survey process was originally designed to help patients compare hospitals in their area to be able to make an informed choice for their healthcare needs. In January 2013, five additional questions were added to the survey. Beginning this year, Medicare reimbursement rates to a hospital are tied to the hospital’s patient satisfaction scores. Therefore, hospitals are continually looking for ways to improve

Healthcare is in a constant state of change with movements that impact rates, access and quality of care. Hospitals have become more competitive due to the rising cost of care delivery and the reduction in reimbursement from payers. This causes difficulty in delivering quality care to all patients, which is being measured by mandated patient perception surveys, Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS). HCAHPS scores are part of value

Satisfaction scores are based on the percentage of participants scoring a question given with the highest possible response such as “definitely yes or always”. These scores are then used to make improvements to the services that the hospital provides. The marks are compared to other hospitals in the area with the same specialty service during the period of July 2016 until December of 2015. The Sterling Heights Medical Center location scored above average in the following areas: Overall satisfaction with the physician 88.2 % with the other Michigan hospitals scoring 87.0%. How well the patient’s pain was controlled was 84.7% with other local hospitals scoring 80.9%, and the nursing care satisfaction was 89.5% with other local hospitals scoring 88.2%. Henry Ford Hospital is located on W. Grand Blvd in downtown Detroit was one of the HFHS locations that scored below average as compared to other Southeast Michigan Hospitals. The results are as follows: Overall satisfaction with physician was 84.9% with local hospitals scoring 87.0%. How well the patient’s pain was controlled scored 75.5% as compared to 80.9%, and nursing care came in at 83.3% with the local average being 88.2% (Patient Satisfaction Survey,

Dignity Health Methodist Hospital of Sacramento is a nonprofit general acute care hospital located in the southern part of Sacramento on 7500 Hospital Dr, Sacramento, CA 95823. Methodist Hospital has been serving the Sacramento region since 1973. The hospital has 329 licensed bed in total, out of the 329 beds 162 are acute care bed type. Methodist hospital provides patients a full range of services ranging from skilled nursing, Family Birth Center, Emergency Room, Orthopedic, to Physical Therapy Center. It offers 24-hour basic emergency services but unfortunately, it does not offer trauma services. Provider Id 050590.

This paper will describe current quality outcome measures and the significance for improving medical care. Organizational accountability and transparency has improved with the emergence of Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) programs and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPs). This article will review the role of the nurse manager in creating a culture for quality care as well as the nurse for meeting organizational and patient expectations. Organizations like The Joint Commission (JC), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and The American Nurses Association (ANA) have been critical in establishing standards for quality. This paper will also report on the most recent hospital statistics and steps taken to improve HCAHP scores and reduce readmission rates at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville (UTMCK). Statistics at UTMCK will also be compared to the Tennessee and National averages found on the Medicare website Hospital Compare. The aim of this paper is to explore if healthcare system initiatives are improving quality and enhancing patient outcomes.

Baptist Health has expanded on this foundation to become the largest HCO in the state with seven owned hospitals and

JCAHO (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations) Joint Commission Standards. 2000. Retrieved from www.jcaho.org/standard/jcstandards.html

The basic reason for this study is to identify ways to improve the quality of healthcare among patients through bedside reporting method.This will better satisfaction and services delivered at the hospitals. The ever increasing specialization to improve patient outcomes and better health care delivery can contribute to the serious riskof fragmentation of care and problems with handoffs. These are some of the issues associated with emergency room reporting method (Radtke, 2013). There is need to evaluate the handoff method used in hospitals and understand which is the best way to use that increases patient satisfaction. Bedside handoff gives the patient an opportunity to contribute to his or her plan of care. It allows the nurse to visualize the client and as necessary questions regarding their health status. This is the reason there is a need to conduct research on bedside reporting.

CMS will be rewarding the top performing hospitals by increasing to their payment for Medicaid patients. HCAHPS survey is sent out within six weeks of the patients discharged, there is 27 questions relating to communication with the staff, cleanliness, pain management, communication about medicines, discharge information and if they would recommend the hospital. The data is to Premier Incorporated to categorize the date, and then place this information on the website http://.wwwhospitalcompar.hhs.gov and available to the public. Health Quality Alliance and Center of Medicare and Medicaid Systems have awarded over eight million to hospitals who have shown improvements in the care of their patients.

Definitions of the quality of medical care are no longer left to clinicians who decide for themselves what technical performance constitutes “good care.” What are the other dimensions of quality care and why are they important? What has changed since the days when “doctor knows best?”

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is the highest level of national recognition for performance excellence that United States organization can receive. Being that an organization has received the highest level of recognition that can be reached. When a patient is aware of that, they would continue being a client to the facility. People want the best quality of service that one can receive. Therefore, a facility that is a recipient of such award customer base is going to rise. A study between Baldrige hospitals and Non-Baldrige hospitals was done and showed a significant difference. A Baldrige hospital Patient Safety Index was 58.230 versus Non-Baldrige hospital was only 50.010. The severity-adjusted average length of stay was 59.280

The patients’ comments support the score of HCAHPS. Out of 75 negative comments, 33 of them address the issue of noisiness while only 1 out of 17 positive comments support the statement that area around the room is quiet at night. Therefore, it is evident that the HCAHPS claim on why Herzog Memorial Hospital has low satisfaction is valid.

Through statistical analysis, there were ten AHRQ inpatient quality indicators that are statistically different from that of the reference population. To determine which ones were significant, the reference population was compared to the risk-adjusted confidence interval. Those whose reference population was outside the risk-adjusted confidence interval were deemed as significantly different. These ten indicators are listed below in Table 1.

These measurements provide feedback of a patient’s experience with the care offered at a given hospital. These measurements assess a wide range of factors including interpersonal aspects of care, clarity of - and ease of access to - information provided by the physician, speed of medical staff’s response to the patient’s urgent care needs, among other factors. These measurements are used by patients in their subjective evaluation during their process of choosing a hospital for emergency care or

Quality is one of the most essential elements of healthcare. As stated by the Agency of Health Research and Quality, “Everyday, millions of Americans receive high-quality health care that helps to maintain or restore their health and ability to function” (Agency of Health Research and Quality, 2014). Improvements have become vital to the success of health care organizations and in the Healthcare Quality Book, it is explained that quality in the U.S. healthcare system is not at the standard that it should be (Ransom, Joshi, Nash & Ransom, 2008). Although this has been a reoccurring issue, attempts to fix the insufficiency have been less successful than expected.