|
Redwood Area Hospital
| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FROM: Shelly Pauling,
Education & Communications Manager
RE: Consumers can see how patients rate care at Redwood Area
Hospital
DATE: April 29, 2008
Consumers can now learn how patients rated their care at Redwood
Area Hospital (RAH) and at other Minnesota hospitals, thanks to
federal survey data available on a hospital-quality Web site.
The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and
Systems (HCAHPS) patient-opinion survey provides one more source
of information consumers can use in evaluating their health-care
options. The study’s results are available on the Minnesota
Hospital Quality Report (MHQR) Web site at
www.mnhospitalquality.org.
Responses to about 25 questions were grouped in ten categories.
For the southwest Minnesota region, RAH received the top ranking
in five of the categories. On a statewide level, RAH made the
list of top ten hospitals in every category and was ranked as
high as third for several question categories.
“It is always nice to get marks that are higher than average for
the state or the average for the nation, says hospital
administrator Jim Schulte. I congratulate the hospital staff and
physicians for the excellent care they provide that results in
these positive perceptions from our patients. We are always
trying to make improvements. We will continue to work at earning
patient responses that are even higher than this initial report,
but it is a good place to start,” says Schulte.
The survey asks newly discharged patients things like how well
doctors and nurses listened to them, how well their pain was
controlled and how clean and quiet their surroundings were. The
study is different from many other quality assessments in that
it measures less-clinical aspects of care not particular to
medical condition.
Hospitals are individually identified in a standardized,
comparable format.
The Hospital Quality Alliance, a private/public partnership that
includes hospital associations, consumer groups, government, and
other stakeholders who share an interest in improving hospital
quality, gathered the information from more than 2,500 U.S.
hospitals. Results nationally debuted in late March on the
Hospital Compare Web site, www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.
Information will be updated quarterly.
The prevailing responses from patients admitted to Redwood Area
Hospital gave higher average marks than the Minnesota average or
the national average. The following chart reflects overall
average scores in the 10 categories of questions:
| |
% of patients |
gave their hospital |
best-possible score |
|
Question/issue |
MN Avg |
National Avg |
RAH Avg |
|
Communication with nurses |
76 |
73 |
86 |
|
Communication with doctors |
80 |
79 |
88 |
|
Responsiveness of staff |
67 |
60 |
76 |
|
Pain management |
68 |
67 |
74 |
|
Communication regarding medicines |
61 |
58 |
68 |
|
Cleanliness of hospital environment |
73 |
68 |
85 |
|
Quietness of hospital environment |
56 |
54 |
72 |
|
Discharge instructions |
82 |
79 |
87 |
|
Overall hospital rating |
65 |
63 |
75 |
|
Willingness to recommend |
70 |
67 |
72 |
|
|