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The ED CAHPS Survey is designed for adult patients (18 and older) of hospital-based emergency rooms who are discharged to home (also known as “treat and release” visits), which account for about 90% of all ED visits. The ED CAHPS Survey includes 35 questions that focus on communication and coordination, including arrival at the ED, care during the ED visit, and discharge from the ED; the survey also includes key demographic items.

The intent of the HCAHPS initiative is to provide a standardized survey instrument and data collection methodology for measuring patients’ perspectives on hospital care. While many hospitals have collected information on patient satisfaction, prior to HCAHPS there was no national standard for collecting or publicly reporting patients’ perspectives of care information that would enable valid comparisons to be made across all hospitals. In order to make “apples to apples” comparisons to support consumer choice, it was necessary to introduce a standard measurement approach: the HCAHPS Survey, which is also known as the CAHPS® Hospital Survey, or Hospital CAHPS. HCAHPS is a core set of questions that can be combined with a broader, customized set of hospital-specific items. HCAHPS Survey items complement the data hospitals currently collect to support improvements in internal customer services and quality related activities.

The Clinician & Group Visit Survey asks patients about their experiences with care at their most recent visit with an ambulatory care provider. It is applicable to any type of synchronous visit—that is, any visit in which care is delivered and received at the same time, regardless of whether the interaction occurred in person, by phone, or by video. Survey Results can be used to:

• Determine the need for improvement activities and evaluate the impact of those efforts.
• Equip consumers with information they can use to choose physicians and other health care providers, physician practices, or medical groups.

The In-Center Hemodialysis Survey Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®), hereafter referred to as the "ICH CAHPS Survey," is designed to measure the experiences of people receiving in-center hemodialysis care from Medicare-certified dialysis centers (also known as ICH facilities or dialysis facilities). The survey is designed to meet the following three broad goals:

• Produce comparable data from the patient’s perspective that will allow objective and meaningful comparisons between dialysis centers on domains that are important to consumers.
• Create incentives for dialysis centers to improve their quality of care.
• Enhance public accountability in health care by increasing the transparency of the quality of care provided in return for public investment.

Specifically, the survey measures patients’ experiences on topics that are necessary for making more informed choices when selecting a dialysis center as well as helping dialysis centers participating in the study to improve the quality of dialysis care for their patients. The following types of patient experiences are included: 

• communication and care provided by kidney doctors,
• quality of the dialysis center‘s care and operations, and
• providing of information to patients.

Primary Care First (PCF) is a 5-year model aiming to improve quality, improve patient experience of care, and reduce expenditures. Clinical quality, utilization, and patient experience measures are used to assess quality of care delivered at the practice and PCF practice sites must meet standards that reflect quality care and model requirements in order to be eligible for a positive performance-based adjustment (PBA). The measures were selected to be actionable, clinically meaningful, and aligned with CMS’s broader quality measurement strategy.

The Patient Experience of Care Survey (PECS), which is based on the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Clinician and Groups Survey (CG), is also required for all practice sites. Positive patient experience reflects high-quality care. Positive patient experience is also associated with higher levels of patient adherence, improved clinical outcomes, and lower utilization of inpatient and emergency department services. The designers of the PCF questionnaire specifically included CAHPS questions that measure whether patients observe providers and practice sites engaging in behaviors connected to PCF objectives, such as use of a care team with 24/7 access to the patient’s EHR and educating patients about how to get emergency care outside of practice hours.

The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Hospice Survey was designed to measure and assess the experiences of patients who died while receiving hospice care, as well as the experiences of their informal primary caregivers. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) developed the CAHPS Hospice Survey with input from many stakeholders, including other government agencies, industry stakeholders, consumer groups, and other key individuals and organizations involved in hospice care.

Since the CAHPS Hospice Survey focuses on experiences of care, implementation of the survey supports the following national priorities for improving care: involving patients and families in care and promoting effective communication and coordination.

The standardized 47 question CAHPS Hospice Survey instrument is composed of the following measures: Communication with Family (formerly Hospice Team Communication), Getting Timely Help (formerly Getting Timely Care), Treating Patient with Respect (formerly Treating Family Member with Respect), Emotional and Spiritual Support (formerly Getting Emotional and Religious Support), Help for Pain and Symptoms (formerly Getting Help for Symptoms), Training Family to Care for Patient (formerly Getting Hospice Care Training), Rating of this Hospice, and Willingness to Recommend this Hospice.

The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) Home Health Care Survey, hereafter referred to as the "Home Health Care CAHPS Survey" is designed to measure the experiences of people receiving home health care from Medicare-certified home health care agencies. The survey is designed to meet the following three broad goals:

• To produce comparable data on the patient’s perspective that allows objective and meaningful comparisons between home health agencies on domains that are important to consumers.
• Public reporting of survey results will create incentives for agencies to improve their quality of care.
• Public reporting will enhance public accountability in health care by increasing the transparency of the quality of care provided in return for public investment.