Ninety four percent of inpatients at Calais Regional Hospital (CRH) would definitely or probably recommend CRH to family and friends for care. That’s one of many reasons why staff at Calais Regional has cause to be proud. Patient satisfaction surveys have been a regular part of hospital visits for many years now at Calais Regional Hospital. Hospital staff has constant access to view and analyze the collected data - and now, so does the public with the launch of the Department of Health and Human Services Hospital Compare website at www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.

Being a Critical Access Hospital, CRH is not required to release its patient satisfaction data for public viewing. However, CRH elected to take part in the release of data right from the beginning in an effort to continually improve and be transparent about where we stand to the public. All Non-Critical Access Hospitals in the country are required to release the data for the public website or risk their Medicare payments being cut.

Current scores show Calais Regional above national averages on all items, and at or above state averages on all but three items. “We are pleased with our scores so far. We plan to use the data to assist us with improvement strategies and efforts to consistently exceed our patient’s expectations,” stated DeeDee Travis, CRH Director of Community Relations, Development and Customer Service. When asked to rate the Hospital overall, 90% of CRH patients rated the facility at 7 or higher on a scale of 1 to 10, with 74% coming in with a rating of 9 or 10. Hospital staff can take great pride in these results.

The survey tool used nationwide to collect patient satisfaction data for the website is known as HCAHPS (pronounced H-caps) and stands for Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems. The website also posts quality of care data on hospitals, but the purpose of the HCAHPS survey is to evaluate hospital quality of care from the patient’s perspective. Questions were developed to reveal how well various patient needs are met: did nurses listen to them, did doctors treat them with courtesy and respect, was pain controlled, and other such indicators. At least once each quarter hospitals across the country report their results to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The results are posted on the website for the most recent four quarters’ of data and will also include national and state averages. Users can choose to compare up to three hospitals side by side on ten hospital experience survey items.

This is just another example of Calais Regional Hospital’s efforts to provide open measures to the public. The Hospital previously participated in public surveys with the Maine Hospital Association (MHA). With the launch of this federal website, the MHA public survey has been replaced. Through open communication and voluntarily placing our data for public view, Calais Hospital hopes to put statistical data behind our claim that we are a provider of exemplary service close to home.