How can patient and provider surveys improve health care?
Improving health care through patient and provider surveys
Challenge
Ensuring high-quality health care and protecting patient safety is a major and ongoing challenge facing our society. Each year the U.S. spends about $3.65 trillion on health care yet hundreds of thousands of hospital patients die as a result of medical errors.
As part of its effort to promote high-quality health care, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has 2 long-term survey programs that Westat supports.
•Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®), which asks patients about their experiences with health plans and the care they receive from doctors, nurses, and staff in medical offices and other health care facilities
•Surveys on Patient Safety Culture (SOPS™), which ask health care providers and staff in hospitals, medical offices, nursing homes, community pharmacies, and ambulatory surgery centers about the extent to which their organizational culture supports patient safety
