Raising HCAHPS Results > Cleanliness of Room and Bathroom

Many hospitals are struggling to raise HCAHPS results using a variety of action plans with varying results. Leading hospitals have a full action plan including experts in each area of concern on the survey. Keep watching while I blog a series on the components of an HCAHPS improvement strategy. The following issue is a critical component to any HCAHPS improvement strategy.

Issue #4, Cleanliness of Room and Bathroom: No matter if hospitals insource or outsource environmental services, there are times that housekeeping miss a detail that becomes a memorable gap in the patient’s experience. In the Errand Solutions Warm Welcome rounding program, we visit each new patient and review a checklist of issues including room cleanliness, water and ice refills, and room temperature issues. Our once-over helps the hospital team address interim clean-up opportunities right away, as well as detect systemic improvement opportunities by identifying patterns.

Why wait to see complaints on surveys? Be proactive and check out http://www.errandsolutions.com/site/patient.htm for ideas on how Errand Solutions helps leading healthcare organizations.

Raising HCAHPS Results > Pain Management Effectiveness

Many hospitals are struggling to raise HCAHPS results using a variety of action plans with varying results. Leading hospitals have a full action plan including experts in each area of concern on the survey. Keep watching while I blog a series on the components of an HCAHPS improvement strategy. The following issue is a critical component to any HCAHPS improvement strategy.

Issue #3, Effectiveness of Pain Management: Although Errand Solutions cannot relieve the patients’ pain, we do help them pass the time more comfortably in the hospital with our Magic Moments program. Patients remember this when they are surveyed. At Cooper University Hospital, our DVD and Book Club library helps patients put their mind elsewhere.

Although Errand Solutions can provide comforts and distractions, patients headed home face a myriad of challenges in their daily tasks. When patients worry about how they will manage their daily needs at home, it only exacerbates their focus on pain. Errand Solutions counsels patients on their everyday needs at home and arranges services which calm concerns and settles minds. Our contracted VendorPartner relationships ensure quality, reliability, and fair pricing.

Why worry? Check out http://www.errandsolutions.com/site/patient.htm for ideas on how Errand Solutions helps leading healthcare organizations.

Raising HCAHPS Results > Patient Discharge

Many hospitals are struggling to raise HCAHPS results using a variety of action plans with varying results. Leading hospitals have a full action plan including experts in each area of concern on the survey. Keep watching while I blog a series on the components of an HCAHPS improvement strategy. The following issue is a critical component to any HCAHPS improvement strategy.

Issue #2: Discharge Information provided: It seems that no matter how many times you tell a recovering patient, they may not comprehend their discharge instructions. You write it down and both doctor and discharge nurse review it verbally. Leading hospitals enhance the message so that unmistakably, the patient locks on their discharge instructions. The most progressive have outsourced the discharge process to revolutionize the transport process into a helpful “fond farewell” experience. Some hospitals even provide amenities to smooth the transition to home to continue the healing.

What makes Errand Solutions’ approach to the discharge process different? Our professionally trained customer service team provides your patients and their guests with a 5-star hotel experience. Our friendly concierge greet your patient at their bedside by name, ask how we can help them plan for their trip home, and what home needs your patient may have to recover from their stay. Our transport time is filled with dialogue where we detect any uncertainty about their discharge information, so we can call up to the floor for nursing to address any issues even before the patient leaves your front door. We make a stop at our discharge lounge where patients experience our hospitality with transportation, prescription orders, grocery or other home service needs. Patients experience our Fond Farewell, and make no mistake remembering the care they received at discharge when they respond to any survey.

Check out http://www.errandsolutions.com/site/patient.htm for ideas on how Errand Solutions helps leading healthcare organizations.

Raising HCAHPS Results > Responsiveness of Nursing Services

Many hospitals are struggling to raise HCAHPS results using a variety of action plans with varying results. Leading hospitals have a full action plan including experts in each area of concern on the survey. Keep watching while I blog a series on the components of an HCAHPS improvement strategy. The following issue is a critical component to any HCAHPS improvement strategy.

Issue #1: Responsiveness of Nursing Services: How can nursing provide any more bedside care than they already provide? Many hospitals have formed entire departments around comfort rounding to patients and their families in order to minimize interruptions to the clinical team, while serving to expedite communication to nursing or physician staff for priority situations. The most progressive organizations recognize the need to outsource customer service so that staff can focus on the clinical needs of patients.

Check out http://www.errandsolutions.com/site/patient.htm for ideas on how Errand Solutions helps leading healthcare organizations.

Healthcare bill good or bad for hospitals?

With the passage of the Healthcare bill, hospitals must rethink the favorable and unfavorable effects of 32 million new paying customers. Although this Tribune article paints a happy tale for competition and rightsizing the hospital payer mix, Illinois nonprofit hospitals will struggle in other ways.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/sc-biz-0323-health-reform-windfall-20100322,0,2451275.story

More insured patients only exacerbate a nonprofit hospital's charitable services reporting problem. Last week, the IL Supreme Court ruled against Provena since it was determined that Provena's level of charitable writeoff was inconsistent with the Court's opinion of how much is enough.

Errand Solutions serves a variety of nonprofit hospitals in IL as well as for profit in 11 states. Errand Solutions helps all hospitals in several ways:

- Tracking every single non-clinical customer service interaction for all patients. Hospitals use this detail from our monthly dashboard reports to quantify a variety of charitable giving, from transportation to equipment, to home services DBD groceries.

- Attracting high-gain patients who can choose where to receive their care. The most profitable patients also have a high expectation for customer service. Errand Solutions is a recognized expert in providing outstanding customer service in the healthcare setting.

- Accolades. Increased competition among hospitals will stress traditional attempts at providing a distinctive environment for wellness. Errand Solutions patient services modules address every step of the patient's Lifecycle interactions throughout the service-stream during their stay. Errand Solutions begins our hospital engagements with a Patient Lifecycle Assessment (PLA). The PLA provides an objective, experienced, patient-centered quantitative report of customer-service improvement opportunities. Recommendations are qualified and rank-ordered to address immediate points of improvement to provide a jump-start to the hospital's top box and net promoter scores.

Errand Solutions lightens the burden for nonprofit hospitals tracking charitable contributions: Illinois Supreme Court challenging nonprofit status

Nonprofit hospitals are under pressure from all angles, and the Illinois Supreme Court has made it even more difficult: Nonprofit hospitals must provide "an adequate amount of charity care to patients or risk losing significant tax exemptions". An Illinois Supreme Court decision March 18, 2010, puts nonprofit hospitals on notice that they must provide an adequate amount of charity care to patients or risk losing significant tax exemptions. The complete article can be viewed at:

Community benefit report crucial for Provena - chicagotribune.com

Errand Solutions supports a great number of nonprofit hospitals across 11 states including Illinois. Our proprietary case management system tracks every single interaction with patients and guests, providing our hospitals with critical data to track non-clinical charitable services. Errand Solutions provides detailed monthly reporting showing charitable transactions, such as:

-- transportation vouchers and travel arrangements to fly/train/bus patients home (when falling ill and being served by the nearby hospital)

-- food vouchers within the hospital for newly discharged patients awaiting transportation home

-- home services arranged through Errand Solutions that are not covered by social work, Medicare or Medicaid

-- office support, printing, copying, notarizing and other services otherwise unavailable in typical hospital settings.

-- time spent on research, for a variety of issues such as the non-clinical home-care recommendations for new ailments that the patient and family now must work around

Errand Solutions delivers the patient and visitor record-keeping system-of-record for all non-clinical interactions. Our reporting detail satisfies all levels of data analysis needs.