Sound Physicians and Studer Group Present Best Practices for Improving Patients' Satisfaction with Hospital Care

TACOMA, WA, November 09, 2010

Sound Physicians, a leading hospitalist organization, today announced "Best Practices for Improving Patient Satisfaction and HCAHPS Scores," a webcast for hospital executives who want to improve the inpatient experience. Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS), is a national standardized survey tool used to measure adult inpatient perception of the quality of care they receive at a given acute care hospital. Participants will learn practical methods to improve inpatient satisfaction and drive up HCAHPS results.

The recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) establishes a value-based purchasing plan beginning FY2013 based on 2012 performance. This act will effectively transition providers from HCAHPS pay-for-reporting to HCAHPS pay-for-performance. The future payments Hospitals receive will depend on their HCAHPS results, which are publicly reported on Medicare's Hospital Compare website.

In this webcast, a panel of patient care experts from Sound Physicians and the Studer Group will prepare hospitals for this forthcoming reality by detailing best practices and principles for improving inpatient satisfaction at the bedside.

CEO and founder of the Studer Group, Quint Studer, will detail principles and key patient touch points that drive inpatient satisfaction and HCAHPS results. Sound Physicians CEO Robert Bessler, MD and chief training officer Mark Rudolph, MD will discuss proven methods for measuring and improving individual physician performance through leadership intervention. The panel will also discuss the key role hospitalists play in helping hospital executives improve and maintain patient satisfaction.

HCAHPS provides hospitals with a standardized survey and data collection process for measuring patient opinion on quality of care. It is the first national standard for collecting and/or publicly reporting care information. The patient study includes a core set of questions on care and service that can be combined with custom hospital-specific items. Hospital executives use this information to improve customer service and quality related activities as well benchmark their hospital against others.

The HCAHPS survey tool evaluates a number of key areas, including communication with doctors and nurses, responsiveness of hospital staff, pain management, communication about medicines, discharge information, cleanliness of the hospital environment, and quietness of the facility.

Studer is a patient care and service excellence thought leader. He is a nationally recognized speaker and a published author. Bessler founded Sound Physicians in 2001. He is an expert in hospitalist program design and management, and a frequent speaker at healthcare conferences on driving inpatient performance. Rudolph is a physician training expert and chief medical officer.

To register for the webcast, visit http://www.soundphysicians.com/register

About Sound Physicians
Sound Physicians is a leading hospitalist organization focused on driving improvements in the quality, satisfaction and efficiency of inpatient healthcare delivery. By investing deeply in outstanding physicians, implementing clinical process excellence and developing proprietary workflow and informatics technology, Sound Physicians is defining hospital medicine. Sound Physicians seamlessly partners with healthcare providers to measurably enhance patient satisfaction and outcomes and strengthen the hospital's financial performance, typically yielding a 2-5 percent margin improvement. To learn more, visit: http://www.soundphysicians.com

Contacts
Sound Physicians
Lynn Purdy, 253-284-1873
lpurdy@soundphysicians.com