Accelerating Improvement and Narrowing Gaps: Trends in Patients' Experiences with Hospital Care Reflected in HCAHPS Public Reporting

Objective. Measure HCAHPS improvement in hospitals participating in the second and fifth years of HCAHPS public reporting; determine whether change is greater for some hospital types. Data. Surveys from 4,822,960 adult inpatients discharged July 2007-June 2008 or July 2010-June 2011 from 3,541 U.S. hospitals. Study Design. Linear mixed-effect regression models with fixed effects for time, patient mix, and hospital characteristics (bedsize, ownership, Census division, teaching status, Critical Access status); random effects for hospitals and hospital-time interactions; fixed-effect interactions of hospital characteristics and patient characteristics (gender, health, education) with time predicted HCAHPS measures correcting for regression-to-the-mean biases. Data Collection Methods. National probability sample of adult inpatients in any of four approved survey modes. Principal Findings. HCAHPS scores increased by 2.8 percentage points from 2008 to 2011 in the most positive response category. Among the middle 95 percent of hospitals, changes ranged from a 5.1 percent decrease to a 10.2 percent gain overall. The greatest improvement was in for-profit and larger (200 or more beds) hospitals. Conclusions. Five years after HCAHPS public reporting began, meaningful improvement of patients' hospital care experiences continues, especially among initially low-scoring hospitals, reducing some gaps among hospitals.