The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and System (HCAHPS) survey is a key tool for assessing patient experience during a hospital stay. The survey asks recently discharged patients 29 questions related to their recent hospitalization, from communication with the medical and nursing teams to the cleanliness of the hospital. Yale postdoctoral fellow Kathleen E. Fitzpatrick Rosenbaum, PhD, RN, led a recent study published in Medical Care examining nursing factors that were associated with a better patient experience, “Hospital Performance on Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and System Ratings: Associations With Nursing Factors.”
Rosenbaum and her team found higher ratings were associated with a few key factors: lower patient-to-nurse staffing ratios, higher proportions of nurses with bachelor’s degrees or higher, and more favorable work environments indicated by high levels of “clinical autonomy and interprofessional teamwork.” The study also examined variables such as skill mix, measured by the proportion of registered nurses to total nursing staffing. The highest association with HCAHPS ratings was found with work environment, followed by favorable staffing.
Ultimately, the authors concluded that the best performing hospitals had better resources than hospitals that performed poorly, suggesting that improvements in both work environment and staffing may work synergistically to boost patient experience ratings. Importantly, the most predictive aspects of work environment were found to be staff development and continuing nursing education as well as nurse participation in hospital and nursing committees. Based on these findings, the authors suggested that new interventions focused on nursing preceptorship and increasing nursing input on unit and hospital governance may be some of the most effective measures for boosting positive work environments and, in turn, patient experience.
“These findings highlight that an investment in nursing has the potential to significantly improve patient experience and quality of care,” said Rosenbaum. Read more in “Hospital Performance on Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and System Ratings Associations with Nursing Factors” in Medical Care.
Rosenbaum KEF, Lasater KB, McHugh MD, Lake ET. Hospital Performance on Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and System Ratings: Associations With Nursing Factors. Med Care. 2024;62(5):288-295. doi:10.1097/MLR.0000000000001966
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