Hospital CAHPS (HCAHPS)

Overview: The HCAHPS Survey is a national, standardized, publicly-reported survey of patients' perspectives of hospital care.  The 29-item instrument and data collection methodology allows valid comparisons to be made across hospitals.  The survey was nationally implemented in 2006 and public reporting of hospital scores began in 2008.  Since 2012, HCAHPS scores have also played a role in hospital payment through the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program.  

About the survey: The HCAHPS Survey captures the patient’s experience of communication with doctors and nurses, responsiveness of hospital staff, communication about medicines, cleanliness and quietness of the hospital, discharge information, transition to post-hospital care, and overall rating of the hospital.  The survey is administered between 2 and 42 days after discharge to a random sample of adult patients.  There are four approved modes of administration: Mail, Telephone, Mixed (mail with telephone follow-up), and Interactive Voice Response.  The survey is available in official Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese, Portuguese, German, Tagalog, and Arabic translations.  Over 4,400 hospitals participate in HCAHPS and nearly two million patients complete the survey each year.  

How the data are used: Publicly-reported HCAHPS results are based on four consecutive quarters of patient surveys. CMS publishes updated HCAHPS results of participating hospitals four times a year on the Compare Tool on Medicare.gov and in the Data Catalog on Data.CMS.gov. For information about the Hospital VBP program, please visit the CMS website, https://www.qualitynet.org/inpatient/hvbp. Summaries and analyses of HCAHPS scores can be found on the official HCAHPS On-Line website, www.HCAHPSonline.org, which also provides news and alerts, training materials, podcasts, survey instruments and implementation protocols.  

For more information, please visit the HCAHPS website: http://www.hcahpsonline.org/ where you can access the survey and its protocols for administration, sampling, data collection, and file submission in the current version of the HCAHPS Quality Assurance Guidelines.  You may also contact CMS at HOSPITALCAHPS@cms.hhs.gov or the HCAHPS project team at hcahps@hsag.com.