Comparisons of UWHC HCAHPS and PAIN OUT data

With health care reimbursement increasingly tied to outcome measurements and patient satisfaction, optimizing postoperative analgesic control is of paramount importance. Achieving this goal requires the effort and coordination of a variety of health care professionals. In an effort to improve postoperative pain outcomes at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics (UWHC), our institution started participating in the PAIN OUT project in 2010. PAIN OUT is a multi-national research project aimed to improve the clinical care of patients with postoperative pain.1 We discovered that our institution’s HCAHPS (July-September 2014) survey scores correlate with our PAIN OUT (2010-2014) data. The PAIN OUT survey asks patients to rate a percentage that best reflects how much pain relief they received from their treatments. Of the 84 general surgery patients surveyed, the average was 67%. The HCAHPS data revealed that 62.2% of the 37 patients reported their pain was always well controlled. On the PAIN OUT survey, when patients were asked if they would have wanted to receive more pain treatment, 61.63% of the 86 patients answered no. On the HCAHPS survey, 78.9% of the 38 patients believed hospital staff did everything they could to help with their pain control. This data proves that the general surgery patient population at UWHC needs to improve in pain management. Our goal is to identify a change in this specific patient population to improve HCAPHS pain scores. Once the change is identified and implemented, the effectiveness of the change will be immediately evaluated using the PAIN OUT tool rather than waiting for the delayed HCAHPS data. (1. PAIN OUT (n. d.). About PAIN OUT. Retrieved on March 28, 2014 from http://www.pain-out.eu/) With health care reimbursement increasingly tied to outcome measurements and patient satisfaction, optimizing postoperative analgesic control is of paramount importance. Achieving this goal requires the effort and coordination of a variety of health care professionals. In an effort to improve postoperative pain outcomes at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics (UWHC), our institution started participating in the PAIN OUT project in 2010. PAIN OUT is a multi-national research project aimed to improve the clinical care of patients with postoperative pain.1 We discovered that our institution’s HCAHPS (July-September 2014) survey scores correlate with our PAIN OUT (2010-2014) data. The PAIN OUT survey asks patients to rate a percentage that best reflects how much pain relief they received from their treatments. Of the 84 general surgery patients surveyed, the average was 67%. The HCAHPS data revealed that 62.2% of the 37 patients reported their pain was always well controlled. On the PAIN OUT survey, when patients were asked if they would have wanted to receive more pain treatment, 61.63% of the 86 patients answered no. On the HCAHPS survey, 78.9% of the 38 patients believed hospital staff did everything they could to help with their pain control. This data proves that the general surgery patient population at UWHC needs to improve in pain management. Our goal is to identify a change in this specific patient population to improve HCAPHS pain scores. Once the change is identified and implemented, the effectiveness of the change will be immediately evaluated using the PAIN OUT tool rather than waiting for the delayed HCAHPS data. (1. PAIN OUT (n. d.). About PAIN OUT. Retrieved on March 28, 2014 from http://www.pain-out.eu/)