HSS Reports Scores on HCAHPS Survey

NEW YORK CITY—March 28, 2008

The Hospital Quality Alliance today released the first Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores for hospitals nationwide on different aspects of patient care as rated by patients themselves. Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York City scored well above the national average in both overall patient satisfaction and patient willingness to recommend the hospital to others. HSS is ranked the number one hospital in orthopedics by U.S.News & World Report in its 2007 "America's Best Hospitals" survey.

“Our patients’ willingness to recommend us to others is a reflection of the skill and expertise of our staff,” said Louis A. Shapiro, president and chief executive officer of Hospital for Special Surgery. “And our overall patient satisfaction is a testament to the superb care and environment provided by the entire team involved in a patient’s treatment and recovery.”

Survey results indicated 77 percent of patients admitted to Hospital for Special Surgery ranked their overall satisfaction with the hospital a 9 or 10 quality rating on a 10 point scale. By comparison, a little more than 60 percent of patients nationally on average scored their overall satisfaction at their hospital that favorably.

The survey also found 85 percent of Special Surgery patients were willing to recommend the hospital to others. Nationally, only 67 percent of patients were inclined to recommend their hospital to others.

The Hospital Quality Alliance is a national public-private collaboration of hospital groups, consumer representatives, physician and nursing organizations, employers and payers, oversight organizations and government agencies dedicated to encouraging hospitals to voluntarily collect and make public quality of care information. The HCAHPS survey consists of 27 questions asking patients, after they have left the hospital, how often different aspects of care were provided. The Hospital Quality Alliance hopes that this survey will provide an independent, objective look at patients’ experience while they were in the hospital.

Hospital for Special Surgery encourages the sharing of this information as part of a continuous effort to have a clear dialogue about the quality of care it provides. The hospital has long conducted its own internal surveys to assess patient satisfaction and address areas needing more support.

For the other areas of the HCAHPS survey, such as responsiveness of hospital staff and communication with nurses, Hospital for Special Surgery is at or well within range of national averages. The hospital has a number of initiatives in place to enhance patient satisfaction in all of HCAHP’s areas. Nearly 80 percent of Special Surgery patients said they were always satisfied with the communication they had with doctors.

“We are, of course, pleased we scored so high,” said Shapiro, “but there are always opportunities to do even better. In addition to the patient satisfaction surveys we always conduct, these results provide an important benchmark to assess our patients’ experience and we work very hard to exceed the expectations of our patients who chose to come to HSS to receive the best musculoskeletal care in the world.”

For more detailed information on the HCAHPS survey and Hospital for Special Surgery’s scores, please go to http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/.