Measurement of the Patient Experience: Clarifying Facts, Myths, and Approaches

The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey is a 32-item tool administered after discharge to a random sample of adult inpatients, creating standardized, publicly reported metrics that allow fair comparisons of patient experience in hospitals across the nation.

The 11 HCAHPS measures derived from the survey reported on the Hospital Compare website assess how well nurses and physicians communicate with patients, how responsive hospital staff are to patients’ needs, how well hospital staff help patients manage pain, how well the staff communicates with patients about new medicines, whether key information is provided at discharge, how smoothly ...

The patient-as-partner approach in health care: a conceptual framework for a necessary transition.

A new model to enforce the partnership between patients and healthcare professionals has been developed at the University of Montreal’s Faculty of Medicine. Their patient-as-partner approach is rooted in patient-centered perspectives that have inspired previous initiatives like shared decision making, therapeutic education, expert patient and self-management. The main contribution of “Montreal model” is to consider the patient as a caregiver of himself and, as such, a genuine member of the treatment team, endowed with competencies and limitations just like any other member of the team.
This article describes the theoretical basis and summarize the main achievements of this innovative ...

How High-Need Patients Experience the Health Care System in Nine Countries

In this study, high-need patients are defined as those aged 65 and older with at least three chronic conditions or a functional limitation in activities of daily living. The brief analyses data from the Commonwealth Fund 2014 International Health Policy Survey of Older Adults to investigate health care use, quality, and experiences among high-need patients in nine countries (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States) compared with other older adults. The study found that high-need adults use more health care – especially avoidable Emergency Department visits –, experience more cost-related barriers to care, and poorly coordinated ...