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Long Island patients unhappy with their hospitals

Quality Improvement Monitor, April 11, 2008

Long Island patients generally gave their hospitals poor marks on patient satisfaction surveys, with the average scores lower statewide and nationally on eight of the 10 measures, according to Newsday.
CMS last month released scores on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) on its Hospital Compare Web site, a move that sent some CEOs scrambling.
"I can't explain it, other than we have a more critical audience on Long Island," Kevin Dahill, CEO of the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council, told the newspaper.
Data from Press Ganey, the nation’s biggest vendor of patient satisfaction survey, shows that patients in the New York metropolitan area and those who receive care in large hospitals tend to give their hospitals lower ratings.
Dahill called the survey questions subjective and complained that the CMS Web site is difficult to navigate, Newsday reported.
However, Liz Goldstein, CMS’ chief of consumer assessments and healthcare surveys, said HCAHPS was developed after "extensive cognitive testing," comments from focus groups, doctors, nurses and hospital administrators and pilot studies, the paper said. (For more on the release of the HCAHPS scores, read the May Quality Improvement Report).

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