grade from a 'D' to an 'F,' says Ms. Mobley. "That's the benefit of
being able to look at a wide variety of errors," she explains. "Even
'A' hospitals make mistakes."
If you get a poor score
In the direct aftermath of receiving a poor score, make sure you come
out to the public to address the score and your facility's intentions
and plans to improve it. "Set into place an improvement plan," says
Ms. Mobley. "Prove to stakeholders that you intend to be a safe place
to get care. We've seen hospitals hold press conferences to respond to
bad grades and say, 'Here's what we want to do.'"
Once you set that improvement plan, start putting it into action. In
Ms. Tscherne's case, it came down to evaluating the patient experi-
ence and making simple adjustments to make things easier for both
the patients and their families. They evaluated everything they were
doing down to the documents they were giving out to patients for dis-
charge instructions. "There's an evidence-based article that if you
highlight 3 things on a document, you increase engagement," she says.
"So we highlight at least 3 things on our papers."
Another way to raise your scores is by closely examining any bad
results.
"It's very easy to look at the data and see areas they're scoring poor-
ly and areas that carry the most weight and get the biggest bang for
their buck in terms of improvement," says Ms. Mobley.
While you're at it, look at other facilities' scores as well. All OAS
CAHPS scores will be posted to compare starting with the voluntary
OAS CAHPS scores in 2018, says Courtney Jenkins, a spokesperson
for CMS. The HCAHPS scores are already available on the "hospital
compare" section of the Medicare website (medicare.gov/hospital-
compare).
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