For home health providers, improving consumer ratings for healthcare providers and systems (CAHPS) surveys is difficult, with industry response rates ranging from around 25% to 27%, with highly positive and very negative responses often fluctuating.
Home health institutions with high employee engagement and retention are more likely to experience high patient and caregiver satisfaction scores sponsored by strategic healthcare programs and the National Alliance for Care At Care, according to a new report from tax, advisory and consulting firm Berrydunn.
Importantly, the report found that supervisor training had a positive effect on specific care issues and patient motivation to recommend home healthcare facilities.
“The findings suggest that home healthcare institutions can benefit from implementing hospice structuring processes such as mandatory interdisciplinary team (IDT) meetings that promote mentorship, peer connections and ongoing staff education,” the report states.
The report analyzes the results of the National Patient and Family Satisfaction Quality Improvement Project, which developed a program designed to increase patient and caregiver satisfaction. The researchers recruited 81 home hygiene agencies and hospice organizations to participate in the program from October 2023 to June 2024.
The institutions that completed all the program components, including online modules, one-on-one consulting and practical tools, saw the most significant improvements “overwhelmingly”. They saw that the score and recommendation motivation for the rollup CAHPS was the most improved.
Interestingly, institutions that have completed the project but missed some project components have a lower performance compared to institutions that have completed the project but never completed the project.
“(This suggests) that partial engagement can be more harmful than no engagement at all – perhaps due to confusing or fragmented implementations,” the report read.
The report recommends that agencies must first ensure that their organization has sufficient internal preparation and operational stability.
