Page 82 - 914INC Q2 - 2016

community and met patients face to face at senior centers and churches to talk about it,” says Fran Davis, vice president for nursing at St. John’s Riverside Hospital in Yonkers. St. John’s invests a lot of time in cultivating relationships with the people in the city, she notes; connecting their doctors with residents is one way the hospital secures those ties.
If you don’t find them at a community cen- ter near you, look for physicians online. You can watch them earnestly explain illnesses or pro- mote procedures within hospital websites or on YouTube. For those hospitals willing to spend the cash, there is also television advertising.
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, parent to Lawrence and Hudson Valley Hospitals locally, bought 60 seconds of notoriously expensive airtime on Super Bowl Sunday this year to run a colorful, animated ad explaining its research on immunotherapy in cancer.
Plugging their own merits may not sway increasingly savvy consumers, however. Sort- ing through the hyperbole and deciphering numerous accreditations and certifications is difficult. It isn’t clear to the average consumer whether it’s more impressive for a hospital to be a U.S. News & World Report designee or rec- ommended on Healthgrades.
HELP FROM HCAHPS
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services developed the HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) to provide a means for measuring patients’ perspectives on different aspects of their hospital care. It can be found at: www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/search.html
Since 2008, with improvements imple- mented in 2015, there has been a more impar- tial avenue to compare hospitals: HCAHPS scores. The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems is a standardized survey measuring patient sat- isfaction on a number of issues. Among the items assessed are how well the hospital staff communicates and how responsive they are to patients’ needs. It also asks for an over- all rating of the hospital and whether they would recommend it to family and friends.
Not surprisingly, hospitals are keenly aware of the importance of being competitive when it comes to HCAHPS scores.
“We look at our patient-satisfaction scores daily here,” says Davis. “It’s also something that patients now look for; they are educated
At White Plains Hospital, a lounge in its cancer treatment area (above) and the brand-new lobby of the main building both evoke an upscale hotel-like feel.
80 914INC. Q2 2016