advantage is that instead of leafing through the manual paper surveys,
we'll be able to go onto a portal and have our own dashboard so we
can see the results and see how we compare with other surgery cen-
ters working with our vendor. I think it will be a better benchmark."
Orthopaedic Outpatient Surgery Center in West Des Moines, Iowa,
plans on "doing both" — the OAS CAHPS survey and routine satisfac-
tion surveys, both conducted through its survey vendor — says Vicky
Tuel, quality and informatics specialist.
"OAS CAHPS is such a small sampling," she says. "Plus it's 100%
anonymous, so we'd have a hard time identifying people and working
through a resolution if we want to follow up and figure out how we
can do better."
9. Will OAS CAHPS help my facility?
Avoiding the 2% reduction in Medicare payments is the obvious
answer, but consider the broader, long-term picture. The survey is
designed to produce 3 measurable outcomes:
• comparable data from the patient's perspective that allows objec-
tive comparisons between HOPDs and freestanding ASCs;
• public reporting to help consumers make more informed choices when
choosing a surgical facility; and
• public reporting of survey results to help surgical facilities in their
quality-improvement initiatives.
Mr. Hino, who has a background in hospital management, has gone
through this process before — with the same survey vendor — with
HCAHPS, the hospital version of OAS CAHPS. Based on past experi-
ence, he anticipates good things to come of the program. In fact, he's
already seen them after just 2 months of submitting data.
"We noticed in the very first report for our very first month that
we scored low on patients responding to the question regarding
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