Slide Presentation of the 2007 Annual Meeting of AHRQ

Communication is Key

• Selected one person from each hospital as the HCAHPS liaison, responsible for internal communication and training
• Explained rationale for transition, which was to prepare for public reporting as soon as possible
• Shared results of the pilot study to prepare hospitals that the scores would likely be lower due to question and scale changes rather than performance
• Based on the pilot results, estimated the potential score impact for each hospital
• Developed training materials to help hospitals understand the reasoning behind various guidelines, such as adjusting the results based on patient characteristics, etc.