Inpatient Experience Surveys and Overall Hospital Rating: A Correlation Analysis for a Private Hospital in Central America

Abstract

Objectives: To validate the use of a patient experience survey composed of the Spanish version of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey and of questions locally created in our institution, a private hospital in Panama. To identify which domains of our patient experience survey have the strongest association with the overall inpatient hospital experience rating. Methods: A retrospective analysis of 1619 electronic survey results of adult inpatient experience data was performed using exploratory factor and Pearson correlation analyses. The data was collected between March 2018 and December 2019 from a web-survey application, accessible through a link sent by email after hospital discharge. Results: Results from analyses showed that questions grouping occurred under the same domains as the HCAHPS English version (factor loading 0.456 to 0.918) and that a new domain named administrative processes (0.818 to 0.846) arose for the newly created questions. Cronbach's alpha values ranged from 0.32 to 0.85, with an α of0.65 for the new local questions. Correlation analyses were higher for the domains of communication from nurses (0.670) and administrative processes (0.618). Conclusions: Our investigation validates the use of our patient experience survey, composed of questions from the Spanish version of the HCAHPS survey and locally created ones. In our institution, communication from nurses is most correlated with the inpatient hospital experience rating. Hospital administrative processes were also strongly associated with the overall inpatient hospital rating, and we argue that these later aspects should be addressed to improve the patient experience.

Trends in HCAHPS Survey Scores, 2008–2019

“…A key goal of the HCAHPS program was to improve patient experience 12 of care in hospitals, especially for poorperforming hospitals. Since HCAHPS implementation, hospitals and policymakers have shifted focus to hospital patient experiences as evidenced by proliferation of patient experience departments in hospitals and health care systems, new patient experience journals, newsletters, organizations, and conferences; implementation of patient experience surveys internationally; [13][14][15][16][17][18] broadening of hospitals included to Veteran Affairs hospitals, Department of Defense hospitals, and many Critical Access Hospitals; the addition of HCAHPS to federal and state programs; 19,20 and increased scrutiny of HCAHPS. 21,22 Here, we present evidence that this goal has been achieved, with the initial large improvements concentrated in lower-performing hospitals.…”