The Home Health Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HHCAHPS) patient engagement survey impacts the bottom line of home health agencies (HHAs) primarily through attracting referral sources and value based reimbursements.  The HHCAHPS survey is also important for engaging patients through the survey process and gaining insights from how patients rate the services received from your organization. It is imperative for organizations to understand the HHCAHPS survey and work on improving each measure for maximizing their organizations long-term growth and sustainability.

Care of Patients – Question 9

Questions determining how patients feel about the care received from the HHA during the previous two months are found in the Care of Patients domain as question nine, and is one of four other questions from the Home Health CAHPS survey.

This question seeks to assess the perception of the patient in regard to the preparation and knowledge of the home health provider’s clinical team, and the team’s ability to treat the patient’s condition. The ability of the provider to be knowledgeable and prepared to care for the patient will be reflected in this question.

Suggestions for Patient Care Improvement

• Adequately prepare for patient’s visit by reviewing patient discharge information, diagnosis, treatments, other provider visits, etc.
• Clearly communicating the awareness of the patient’s diagnosis and the reason for the visit upon meeting the patient.
• Discuss the progression of patient care from admission to the present, and how the present visit contributes to achieving the treatment goal.
• Review the typical course of treatment for the patient’s diagnosis, and how they compare with their progression.
• Adoption of a point-of-care, mobile documentation solution that allows healthcare providers to easily retrieve and document patient information during their visits.

The goal for HHAs is to build a culture where healthcare providers have tools and processes in place to successfully care for patients by ensuring they have access to the most current patient information at the point-of-care and can successfully communicate to their patients.

In our continuing blog series, we will discuss improving your agency’s HHCAHPS scores by systematically reviewing each of the HHCAHPS questions and sharing opportunities for improvement.