EDMONDS – Stevens Hospital will step up efforts this year to ask patients what they liked, and what they didn’t like, about being treated there.
This is just part of an effort under way at the taxpayer-supported hospital to find out how patients rate its strengths and weaknesses.
More patients will get follow-up phone calls to see how they feel about being treated at the hospital, said Doug Jaquez, director of health care review.
The goal is “do more follow-up calls after they leave to ask how their care was, instead of waiting for someone to call with a complaint,” he said.
Patients who have been hospitalized and those who had been treated at the emergency room or as an outpatient will be questioned. “We haven’t decided if it’s 100 percent or a random sample,” Jaquez said.
PRC, a consulting firm in Omaha, Neb., began conducting a survey of patients last year. The survey cost $29,000, spokeswoman Beth Engel said.
Through that effort, 700 recently hospitalized patients, 800 outpatients, and 400 patients recently treated in its emergency room were surveyed.
They were asked a variety of questions, about such aspects as the hospital’s cleanliness and its food quality and the way doctors communicated with family members. Answers were compared with those from patients at 250 hospitals nationwide.
“Our goal is to meet the norms,” Engel said. “We’re on target.”
Hospitalized patients at Stevens rated their overall quality of care as 83.8 on a 100-point scale, nearly identical to the 83.9 rating given by patients nationally.
Some of the lowest scores were for the food delivered to patients in their rooms, 65.6, and for the admission process, 78.9, in both cases scoring below national numbers.
The overall quality of care in its emergency room was rated 73.3 compared with the national norm of 78.7.
Stevens’ emergency room nurses received good marks for understanding and caring, 82.8, about a point less than the national norm of 83.7. Stevens patients gave some of the lowest scores for the total time spent in the emergency room, a 64, and pain management by staff, 72.9.
The hospital now has volunteers, including nursing students from Edmonds and Shoreline community colleges, to answer questions and give other help to people in the emergency waiting room.
They help inform people of how long the wait will be before they’re treated, help entertain children and take other steps to make patients more comfortable, Engel said. “People seem to appreciate that.”
The program started in the fall, and students are donating about 200 hours a month to assist patients.
The hospital hired five additional emergency room staff members in the fall and plans to add six treatment rooms to the emergency room this year to help get patients treated more quickly.
“The emergency department is the area that we’re working on the most,” Engel said.
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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