HCAHPS: how the OR's scores affect your whole organization.

Fiscal year 2013 will be a milestone for hospital reimbursement. That’s the year Medicare’s proposed new hospital value-based purchasing program starts. Under value-based purchasing, a portion of hospitals’ DRG reimbursement will be based on their performance on quality metrics, including patient perceptions of the quality of care (PPQC). (See March 2011 OR Manager.) Patient perceptions of quality are measured by the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey. HCAHPS scores are already publicly reported on Medicare’s Hospital Compare website (www.hospitalcompare. hhs.gov), but “value-based purchasing will transition providers from HCAHPS pay-forreporting to pay-for-performance,” says Karen Cook, RN, a coach at the Studer Group and coauthor of The HCAHPS Handbook (Studer Group, 2010). The first measurement period for value-based purchasing starts July 1, 2011, putting PPQC high on hospital administrators’ priority list. Some OR managers might dismiss their service line’s ability to affect PPQC, but savvy ones know they play a significant role in HCAHPS scores. “HCAHPS is about the patient’s experience with the hospital, including time in the OR,” says Christina Dempsey, BSN, MBA, RN, CNOR, senior vice president, operational and clinical consulting for Press Ganey.