Higher HCAHPS Scores Mean Larger Funding
Increasing patient satisfaction and HCAHPS scores are priorities for hospitals today. There are a myriad of techniques and approaches for reaching this goal however, many hospitals have found that Austco Tacera Nurse Call System plays a pivotal role in assisting them to improve the patient experience and increasing patient satisfaction scores.
Patient satisfaction is receiving greater attention as a result of the rise in pay-for-performance and the public release of data from the HCAHPS survey. Hospital ‘patients’ are no longer just ‘patients’; they are now educated consumers with access to key data measuring hospital patient experiences. Healthcare organizations can no longer afford to ignore the patient experience and HCAHPS scores, as doing poorly on these surveys will both directly and indirectly affect their bottom line.
Example HCAHPS Questions
- Q4. During this hospital stay, after you pressed the call button, how often did you get help as soon as you wanted it?
- Q8. During this hospital stay, how often were your room and bathroom kept clean?
- Q9. During this hospital stay, how often was the area around your room quiet at night?
- Q11. How often did you get help in getting to the bathroom or in using a bedpan as soon as you wanted?
- Q13. During this hospital stay, how often was your pain well controlled?
How can an Austco Solution Help?
Tacera can significantly influence your facilities HCAHPS in six major categories:
- Nurse Communication
- Doctor Communication
- Responsiveness of Hospital Staff
- Cleanliness and Quietness of Hospital
- Hourly Rounding
- Pain Management
Improving Response Time
In the HCAHPS survey, Question 4 states “After you pressed the nurse call button, how often did you get help as soon as you wanted?” With a facility utilizing Tacera, the answer will be “always”. This is easily accomplished by allowing nurses and doctors to be called directly on pagers, wireless telephones or via the nurse’s station. In fact, Tacera enables direct voice communications between the patients and nursing staff on their preferred mobile device, virtually eliminating overhead paging. This all adds up to a quieter, more healing environment and having direct communication puts patients at ease.
The numerous alerting options including phones, pagers, workstations and consoles available with Tacera, ensures that the right staff member receives the alert almost immediately. If the staff member is busy or with another patient, our advanced call configurations will send the message to backup staff. Using the Reports Manager will allow management to analyze call response times through either calls or staff members so they will know exactly how long patients are waiting and can adjust processes if needed.
Quieter Environment
In the HCAHPS survey, Question 5 states “During this hospital stay, how often was the area around your room quiet at night?” Direct messaging and calls to staff has practically eliminated the need for overhead paging and noise. Implementing a quiet, healing environment has proven to result in healthier and happier patients.
Hourly Rounding – The secret formula to achieving higher HCAHPS Scores
If a hospital is scoring high for fast response to call requests, patient/caregiver communication and in other areas, you can be sure they are rounding hourly. Automatic Rounding reminders are activated with the push of a button on the Touch Duty station. Having a standard rounding schedule can help staff meet patient needs before a lapse is perceived.
Pain Management
A few things are more related to patient satisfaction than relieving pain, but pain management is about more than stopping pain; it’s about building a foundation of trust between patients and caregivers, which ties in to quality of care, level of patient satisfaction, and higher HCAHPS scores. Using the Tacera Staff Terminal to schedule regular pain assessments, patients can answer the Q5 HCAHPS question “How often was your pain well-controlled?” with “always” every time.
With the Tacera Nurse Call System, hospitals have access to a tremendous amount of real, actionable data, providing their organization with the tools they need to systematically examine workflows, alerts, and escalations that happen once a call is placed from a patient’s room. Having access to this data gives hospitals the information they need to improve the patient experience and HCAHPS scores. The following examples are just a few of the ways that the Tacera Nurse Call System is used to improve the patient experience.
Our Pillow Speakers come equipped with a “Pain management button” built directly into them. Through our sophisticated call management, Tacera will contact the correct caregiver who can provide pain relief. Also, staff can proactively manage pain assessment through our Staff Rounding or Pain Reassessment feature, and of course, all of these details can be reviewed and analyzed through the Reports Manager.