A hospital in the southwest Iowa town of Red Oak is being recognized as the number-one hospital in the state for patient satisfaction. Montgomery County Memorial Hospital public relations director David Jennings says the Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services now requires hospitals that receive the Inpatient Prospective Payment System to report the results of a standardized survey of patients about their hospital stay.
Critical Access hospitals, such as Montgomery County Memorial, are not required to report, but he says many do. Jennings says there are 62 hospitals in the state that report their Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems scores. Jennings says some of the information compares them to the 62 hospitals in the state that report, while some of the data compares them with the other 3,711 hospitals nationally that report.
The hospital ranked first out of 62 hospitals in the state which report. There are 117 hospitals in Iowa and out of that number, 62 send reports to the CMS, most of which are larger hospitals. Montgomery County Memorial Hospital ranks very high when compared to other reporting hospitals in the state, region and nation. Jennings lists some of the categories upon which the survey is based.
They include: nurse communication, physician communication with the patient, responsiveness of hospital staff, pain management, communication about medicines, cleanliness, quietness around rooms at night, discharge information, the over-all rating, and the willingness of the patient to recommend the hospital to others. This information is posted on the web at “www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov“.
Contirbuted Kristan Gray, KMA, Shenandoah