Strategy to Improve HCAHPS Scores Starts With Effective Communication and Employee Awareness.
Since the inception of 2008 patient care and competition from the health care industry hasn't been more important or measured. From enhanced patient care to hospital incentives and aggressive placement, the importance of high scores is as critical as ever.
While a strong focus on proper care and effective communication with patients has been placed with individual surveys internal attention needs to also be placed on how HCAHPS importance is being communicated internally with the hospital personnel.
The reality is that without complete awareness and a willingness by all employees to focus on patient care satisfaction high scores would only be achieved accidentally.
The first step in improving scores (and these are really basics) is developing a hospital broad and complete comprehension of what exactly is being measured by patients. Utilizing internal communication to make hospital worker comprehension of how every hospital staff member plays a crucial function in scoring is overriding.
To create that awareness and ultimately create position specific accountability requires a communication strategy that not only provides hospital staff adequate comprehension of how hospitals are being measured but also makes a culture of human obligation to perform their part in producing the perfect patient experience.
Like any other internal communication vehicle you will find defects. In the employee who may not have obtained the advice to the employee who's not be accessible when material has to be reviewed along with the employee who simply just not know the significance... Any vehicle for hospital communicating needs to have measurement of readership and acknowledgement functionality as well as the capability to quantify employee comprehension of internal policies or initiatives regarding patient care.
Besides broadcasting"Everything you need to know about HCAHPS" an instrument for measuring a hospital employee's degree of comprehension of HCAHPS is vital. Normal testing and discovery of knowledge gaps is a valuable tool to improve scores at any given location in any hospital.