CMS recently released preview data to the hospitals who submitted their patient satisfaction survey data, leading to this statement that the survey data composite scores contain a pretty large error that skewed a lot of the results, as well as some confusion over how the data would be reported in the HHS public Hospital Compare Web site. From the HCAHPSOnline site:
An error has been found in the “Hospital CAHPS (HCAHPS) Survey” section of the recently released Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) Preview Report. In four HCAHPS Composites (Composite 3, “Responsiveness of hospital staff”; Composite 4, “Pain Management”; Composite 5, “Communication about medicines”; and Composite 6, “Discharge Information”), patients whose response was submitted as “Not applicable” were incorrectly scored as “Usually”; these patients should have been excluded from the calculations. This error sometimes resulted in lower scores for these four composites. No other HCAHPS composites or items were affected by this error.
All that notwithtanding, what appears to be the first news story of its kind the Mineral Wells Index of Mineral Wells, Texas, has a positive story on Palo Pinto General Hospital’s apparently good HCAHPS survey results.
