Provide names of other journalists involved.
NA.
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
Sept. 14, 2011
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
Hospitals in our area are paying much more attention to customer service, bringing in consultants, retraining employees and sending executives out on patient rounds to hear directly from patients about service their staff provides. The movement to improve customer experiences in hospitals comes ahead of Medicare’s October 2012 change of including patient satisfaction scores as part of reimbursements to hospitals. At stake is potentially several million dollars of funding for our larger health systems.
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
Documents available online from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, patient satisfaction surveys from HHS’ Hospital Compare website, and information obtained from health systems.
Explain types of human sources used.
Interviews with hospital executives and analysts.
Results:
NA.
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
NA.
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
It is helpful to speak with hospital CEOs periodically on trends they see in health care and initiatives they are working on to improve patient care.