Need a good reason to fill out those surveys?
November 1, 2000 4 minutes read
Need a good reason to fill out those surveys?
Start with access to the data and go from there
Even though a survey may take only minutes to fill out, associations that rely on member data for benchmarking programs often have trouble getting those members to respond. But there are good reasons you should participate, not least of which is the access you’ll get to the resulting data.
One example is the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care’s (AAAHC) Institute for Quality Improvement, based in Wilmette, IL, which recently published its survey on arthroscopic knee surgery. (For some of the data results, see Healthcare Benchmarks, October 2000.) Naomi Kuznets, PhD, director of the organization, says there are ways to convince members to participate. "First, if you are accredited by us, you have to meet certain standards that are peer reviewed and compared," she says. "Second, we don’t ask for a whole lot of data, and our questionnaires are generally one side of one page. It doesn’t take long to do. Third, if over time we build our data up, we get a statistical power to say inferential things."
The resulting reports aren’t data heavy, but have good quality points to make, she adds. "They are graphical and short, and we try to make it as painless as possible for you to get value out of them and find what you are interested in."
The association closely examines the best performers, both to delve more deeply into their practices, and to confirm that the data submitted was answering the particular question asked, says Kuznets.
For example, in the knee study, many organizations seemed good at moving patients through their procedure with no difference in patient outcomes. "Turnover is fast for some of our respondents. This is important to groups with limited space that want to provide services to more patients. We can go in and determine what the better performers do differently."
Cost variations can also be pointed out. "We learned that a lot of those who seem to have lower equipment costs are going for overstock items. The difference in the prices of shavers and wands may be great, but the outcomes are pretty similar."
Lastly, Kuznets says members are uniformly happy with the reports they get, and there is anecdotal information that respondents use the data to improve their performance.
Dianne Wallace, executive director at the Menomonee Falls (WI) Ambulatory Surgery Center is one such participant. We use it to ask ourselves how we’re doing," says Wallace. "We want to know if there are places where we can do better than we have been, where we can improve, and what we need to investigate further."
The center was the best performer in terms of turnover time. But Wallace says being the best isn’t enough. "We had to consider if we were turning over our patients too quickly. So we looked at our infection rates, and continue to do so every quarter. So far, we are below the norm when we compare ourselves against other ambulatory surgery centers."
Perhaps the center can improve further on turnover, but Wallace says she will watch closely to ensure that "we don’t go too low and start impacting the quality of care."
The center was at the midrange in labor costs per procedure, and Wallace says the center is investigating why more staff are needed for its surgeries. "Our discharge time was also wanting, and we are doing some quality improvement work in that area. We will implement some protocols for our nurses and anesthesiologists and look at that number again in 2001. The benefit of having this number is how it leads us easily into our next batch of quality improvement initiatives.
Members of the AAAHC should watch their mailboxes for future surveys. The second cataract survey is due out shortly, and at the end of the year a follow-up survey on arthroscopic knee surgery is planned. New products for the future include diagnostic colonoscopy, asthma treatment, and college health.
There is also hope that future surveys will be more timely. Currently, survey data are about nine months to a year old by the time they end up in report form. Kuznets hopes that in the future, the Internet and other technological improvements will make those data more timely.
Meanwhile, when an association to which you belong sends out a questionnaire, take time to answer it, says Kuznets. "Without member feedback, we don’t know if what we are asking is relevant and will remain so in the future. We base our studies on a number of criteria, chief among them, what is important to the AAAHC population. We want to make sure that what we ask is actionable, too, since there is no point in studying something and presenting data if our members can’t do anything to change it."
[For more information, contact: Dianne Wallace, Executive Director, Menomonee Falls (WI) Ambulatory Surgery Center. Telephone: (262) 250-0950. Naomi Kuznets, PhD, Director, Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care Institute for Quality Improvement, Wilmette, IL. Telephone: (847) 853-6079.]
You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
- Award-winning Medical Content
- Latest Advances & Development in Medicine
- Unbiased Content