One of the most common tools used to measure quality improvement wherever
services are offered is the survey. It has many good applications if it is well designed
and can provide a lot of information if it is properly analyzed.
When and why should you use surveys? Of course one of the most frequent uses is
with patients and clients. In fact, Medicare is beginning the H-CAHPS survey of
hospitals to find patients' views on many different facets of their service. The survey
is voluntary and results will be posted online in 2007. It is becoming a necessity for
physicians and healthcare professionals to find out what their patients think as
more and more information about care from insurance providers and other sources
is being posted online.
CARE IMPROVEMENT PLUS PROVIDER
The employees of any healthcare facility should be surveyed too. They should, after
all, be considered clients. Since they provide many different services and are the
front line connection to patients, their input about their work environment and
satisfaction with it are to be taken seriously. You should not just be surveying
doctors and nurses, but also maintenance, administrative, and all other groups at
your site.
What are some of the basic ideas you should keep in mind when designing a survey?
1. The best questions are the anchored endpoint type. One end would be "very
satisfied" and the other "very dissatisfied" or something similar, with a 7 or 10 point
scale from one end to the other. The five point scale is too short. It doesn't provide
enough variance.
2. You may ask a few yes and no or gather demographic data, as age.
3. Limit yourself to one open-ended question. They are too hard to provide
statistically significant data.
4. When writing the questions, work with a team of representatives of the people
who will be surveyed. This helps avoid bias and makes sure you have good
questions.
5. Be sure to choose a random sample to survey. It is better to survey 30 or 40
randomly chosen patients or clients whom you interview or have fill out a survey
while in the office rather than getting more surveys by subjects who return mailed
surveys or volunteer in some other fashion. Voluntary surveys are basically
worthless from a statistical point of view.
Once you have collected your surveys, it is time for analysis. For simple analysis, I
suggest using Microsoft's Excel. It has some dynamite graphics. Too, you need to
get the mean and standard deviation of each question where appropriate.
Remember, you want your mean to be as good as possible with low standard
deviation. If you want some more insight and powers of prediction of what action
you should take based upon the survey, I suggest you employ someone who is
trained in statistical analysis or a statistician. The return on the investment of a
professional analyst should easily exceed the expense.
Summarily, surveys are a valuable instrument in finding out the opinions of your
patients and employees. Care should be taken in designing the instrument to insure
there is no bias and that there is randomness in conducting the survey. Investment
in professional analysis is well worth it. The result will be healthier patients who are
more loyal, a definite financial plus.
0 comments:
Post a Comment