Healthcare Quality

Quality in the health care industry can be measured in several ways. It can be measured by the patient’s perception and by the outcome of the treatment they receive. It can be measured using surveys which provide feedback about the care you received during your doctor’s visit or stay at the hospital. These types of surveys are only based on the patient’s opinions about their experiences with the care they received. If you have ever been admitted into a hospital, you may have received a survey in the mail relating to your experiences in that hospital. These surveys are intended to give doctors and nurses feedback so that they can make improvements. Clinical measures also evaluate the quality that health care providers provide. Surveys help hospitals, doctor’s offices and clinics find ways to improve their service. They can be useful because they show where improvement is needed in the system, shows comparisons with other institutions and shows the strong part of the system. Patients are asked several questions in these surveys and are asked to answer them honestly and closely. These patient satisfaction surveys are very useful to the health care field. With the information that current patients provide, it would aid in making quality better for patients in the future. Surveys acknowledge changes that may need to be implemented in the system. The HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) survey is the first national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patients' perspectives of hospital care. It is also known as CAHPS Hospital Survey. This survey is used for measuring patients’ perceptions of their hospital experience. “Until HCAHPS, there was no national standard for collection and publicly reporting information about experiences of a patient care and experience that allowed valid comparisons to be made across hospitals locally, regionally and nationally (Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services).