The customer voice: How surveys after your hospital stay help improve care at ANMC
July 22, 2016
At the Alaska Native Medical Center, we continually strive to provide high-quality, compassionate care for all of our patients and families. Patient feedback in the form of comments, concerns, complaints and compliments, helps inform us of where we need to make improvements to better the patient experience.
How do we collect your feedback? One way is by conducting a follow-up survey after a hospital stay. After you or a loved one return home from your hospital stay at ANMC, you may receive a phone call from our independent survey contractor, Press Ganey, asking you to answer some questions about your inpatient stay. You might have wondered why you received the call and if you should answer.
All acute care hospitals throughout the U.S. participate in a patient survey process designed and regulated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey measures patients’ perspectives of their hospital care.
By your participation in the HCAHPS survey, you provide us with valuable feedback that we can utilize to make improvements. The HCAHPS survey is composed of 27 items that encompass critical aspects in an inpatient hospital stay: communication with doctors, communication with nurses, responsiveness of hospital staff, cleanliness of the hospital environment, quietness of the hospital environment, pain management, communication about medicines, discharge information, overall rating of hospital, and recommendation of hospital.
“We value all feedback we receive from our people,” said Allison Knox, ANMC VP of Customer Experience. “Responses to HCAHPS surveys provide us an understanding of our patients’ perception of care, which we utilize in developing improvement initiatives and improving the care we provide.”
ANMC also collects feedback from patients through outpatient clinic surveys. These satisfaction surveys are provided to customers during clinic visits and rate staff courtesy, whether culture and traditions were respected, and overall customer satisfaction. This data, which is shared with all clinical managers and reported up to hospital leadership, is also utilized for analyzing potential areas of improvement.
For more information on inpatient and outpatient surveys, please contact Allison Knox at aknox@anthc.org. To share a concern, comment, compliment or to address questions you may have, please contact ANMC Customer Experience at (907) 729-3990, toll-free at 1-877-223-9284 or by emailing customercontact@anthc.org.