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AHCPR Announces Faculty of a New Initiative to Assist Consumers in Selecting High-Quality Health Plans
Press Release Date: February 21, 1996
The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research today announced
the members of three
consortia who will implement a major new initiative to assist
consumers in selecting high-quality
health care plans and services. The project, entitled Consumer
Assessments of Health Plans Study
(CAHPS®), consists of cooperative agreements totaling $10 million
over five years with three
consortia headed by Research Triangle Institute, the RAND
Corporation and Harvard
University.
AHCPR Administrator Clifton R. Gaus, Sc.D., said "Surveys by
objective, non-government
polling firms have shown that most Americans would like to have
more information to help them
choose hospitals, doctors and health care plans. We have brought
together the nation's top
experts in patient satisfaction and survey research to develop
and test best methods for measuring
consumers' satisfaction with their health plans and methods for
communicating the results to
consumers."
The surveys will be tested at several demonstration sites
throughout the country, and will focus
on a variety of health plans and service delivery settings,
including HMOs, fee-for-service plans
and public health clinics offering services to low-income
individuals. CAHPS® surveys, and reports
for consumers based on survey information, will be tested at each
of these sites. In the final phase
of the project, CAHPS® researchers will determine if the
survey-based reports for consumers
actually improve their ability to select appropriate health plans
and services.
Dr. Gaus said that CAHPS® differs from other efforts at consumer
assessment of health plans in
some critical ways. "Most of the existing survey instruments are
limited to assessment of
consumer satisfaction with plans," he said. "Surveys developed
under CAHPS® will ask consumers
about additional areas of importance to them, including their
access to care, their use of plan
services—or reasons for not using services—and their rating of
the quality of care they received
and the outcomes of that care."
According to Robert M. Krughoff, president of the Center for the
Study of Services/Consumers
Checkbook Magazine, "Consumers who are trying to choose health
plans that best meet their
needs want to know—and need to know—about current plans
members' experience with the plans.
We expect the CAHPS® effort will produce a high-quality, broadly
accepted set of questionnaires
and ways of reporting results—enabling consumers to compare
plans on a uniform footing
nationwide."
Several fundamental questions provide the basis for each survey
item to be developed under
CAHPS®, including: "How will this information help consumers
spend their health care dollars
more effectively?" and "How will this empower consumers to choose
high-quality plans at a cost
and coverage level appropriate for their budgets and
families?"
The project also will help managed care organizations with their
efforts to provide high-quality
care. "We know that virtually all Health Maintenance
Organizations depend on patient
satisfaction surveys for continuous quality improvement," said
Karen Ignani, president of the
Group Health Association of America/AMCRA. "The AHCPR research
investment in systems to
measure patient satisfaction will improve health care quality and
services."
A related contract awarded by AHCPR to Westat, Inc., will assure
that the survey instruments
and communication devices developed under CAHPS® get into the
hands of consumers, employers,
plans, unions and other interested parties as quickly as
possible. Under terms of the Survey User
Network (SUN) contract, Westat will also provide technical
assistance for users of the survey in
order to facilitate their use. Funding for the first year of
support is $497,000.
Questions regarding the CAHPS® and SUN projects should be directed
to Christine Crofton,
Ph.D., at (301) 427-1323, or Charles Darby, M.A., at (301) 427-1324.
A list of consortium members is below.
Research Triangle Institute (RTI) Consortium
Lisa Adatto
BENOVA
Lauren Burnbauer, Ph.D.
Steve Garfinkel, Ph.D.
Deborah Gibbs, M.S.P.H.
Rick Lennox
Research Triangle Institute
Barbara H. Forsyth, Ph.D.
Department of Survey Methods Research
Research Triangle Institute
Judith Hibbard, Dr.P.H.
Department of Planning, Public Policy, and Management
University of Oregon
Elizabeth W. Hoy, M.H.A.
Institute for Health Policy Solutions
Jim Lubalin, Ph.D.
Health Services and Policy Research Program
Research Triangle Institute
Judy T. Lynch
Survey Operations
Research Triangle Institute
Jeanne McGee, Ph.D.
McGee & Evers Consulting, Inc.
Barbara Sasso
Shoshanna Sofaer, Dr.P.H.
Division of Research Programs
Department of Health Care Sciences
George Washington University Medical Center
Harvard Consortium
Cary Sennett
National Committee for Quality Assurance
Paul D. Cleary, Ph.D.
Arnold M. Epstein, M.D., M.A.
Ed Guadagnoli, Ph.D.
Department of Health Care Policy
Harvard Medical School
Susan Edgman-Levitan
Lee Hargraves
David Veroff
The Picker Institute
Floyd Jackson Fowler, Jr., Ph.D.
Center for Survey Research
University of Massachusetts
Bob Gris
Center on Disability and Health
Charles Homer
Children's Hospital
Sherrie Kaplan
New England Medical Center
Susan Kleimann, Ph.D.
Information Design Center
American Institutes for Research
Donald Rubin
Alan Zaslavsky
Department of Statistics
Harvard Medical School
Rachel Spilka, Ph.D.
Information Design Center
American Institutes for Research
RAND Consortium
Sandra H. Berry, M.A.
Julie Brown
Jim Gillogly
Caren Kamberg
Matt Lewis
Grant Marshall
Beth McGlynn
Sally Morton
Pamela F. Short, Ph.D.
Mark Spranca
RAND
Pauline Daniels, M.P.H.
Member Services Department
United Health Plan
Ron Hays, Ph.D.
David Kanouse, Ph.D.
Raynard S. Kington, M.D., M.B.A., Ph.D.
Department of Social Policy
RAND
J. Allison Mayer-Oakes, M.D., M.S.P.H.
Research and Policy Division
The MEDSTAT Group
For additional information, contact AHCPR Public Affairs: Karen Migdail,
Karen Migdail, (301) 427-1855.