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"Our patients' willingness to recommend us to others is a reflection ofthe skill and expertise of our staff," said Louis A. Shapiro, president andchief executive officer of Hospital for Special Surgery. "And our overallpatient satisfaction is a testament to the superb care and environmentprovided by the entire team involved in a patient's treatment and recovery."
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Survey results indicated 77 percent of patients admitted to Hospital forSpecial Surgery ranked their overall satisfaction with the hospital a nine or10 quality rating on a 10 point scale. By comparison, a little more than 60percent of patients nationally on average scored their overall satisfaction attheir hospital that favorably.
The survey also found 85 percent of Special Surgery patients were willingto recommend the hospital to others. Nationally, only 67 percent of patientswere inclined to recommend their hospital to others.
The Hospital Quality Alliance is a national public-private collaborationof hospital groups, consumer representatives, physician and nursingorganizations, employers and payers, oversight organizations and governmentagencies dedicated to encouraging hospitals to voluntarily collect and makepublic quality of care information. The HCAHPS survey consists of 27 questionsasking patients, after they have left the hospital, how often differentaspects of care were provided. The Hospital Quality Alliance hopes that thissurvey will provide an independent, objective look at patients' experiencewhile they were in the hospital.
Hospital for Special Surgery encourages the sharing of this information aspart of a continuous effort to have a clear dialogue about the quality of careit provides. The hospital has long conducted its own internal surveys toassess patient satisfaction and address areas needing more support.
For the other areas of the HCAHPS survey, such as responsiveness ofhospital staff and communication with nurses, Hospital for Special Surgery isat or well within range of national averages. The hospital has a number ofinitiatives in place to enhance patient satisfaction in all of HCAHP's areas.Nearly 80 percent of Special Surgery patients said they were always satisfiedwith the communication they had with doctors.
"We are, of course, pleased we scored so high," said Shapiro, "but thereare always opportunities to do even better. In addition to the patientsatisfaction surveys we always conduct, these results provide an importantbenchmark to assess our patients' experience and we work very hard to exceedthe expectations of our patients who chose to come to HSS to receive the bestmusculoskeletal care in the world."
For more detailed information on the HCAHPS survey and Hospital forSpecial Surgery's scores, please go to http://www.HospitalCompare.hhs.gov .
About Hospital for Special Surgery
Founded in 1863, Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) is a world leader inorthopedics, rheumatology and rehabilitation. HSS is nationally ranked as No.1 in orthopedics, No. 3 in rheumatology by U.S. News & World Report, and hasreceived Magnet Recognition for Excellence in Nursing Service from theAmerican Nurses Credentialing Center. In the 2006 edition of HealthGrades'Hospital Quality in America Study, HSS received five-star ratings for clinicalexcellence in its specialties. A
