Healthcare Challenge - How did Covid-19 change Patient Satisfaction?

Dear All,

for the Maven Healthcare Challenge, I was working as a Data Analyst for the American Hospital Association (AHA), a national organization that represents hospitals and their patients, and acts as a source of information on health care issues and trends.

Therefore I analyzed the HCAHPS survey results for the last 9 years. HCAHPS initiative provides a standardized survey instrument for measuring patients’ perspectives on hospital care, and one of its 3 main goals is to "create incentives for hospitals to improve their quality of care".

I put the focus on

• Finding out how the HCAHPS scores improved over the past 9 years
• Finding out which Area made the most positive progress towards Patient's Satisfaction
• Indentifying the reasons why results are better in some areas than in others
• Analyzing the impact of Covid-19

The challenge was quite interesting, because the last challenge was more about facts and numbers than about poll values. But I like the way how it turned out. For me it was most interesting to see how the Regions differ and how also the different States in one Region perform. And how they rank in the overall National Rating. You can clearly see, that the Western Regions have much better ratings, than the East or Middle Regions. In my opinion this could be connected to the Democrats and Republicans.

I put a clear focus on showing the performance of the measures and I also indicated the change of them compared to 2015, because I wanted to see which of them changed the most. And like everywhere, you can also see there, that communication and responding to patient's needs is a big issue. Especially in an environment where the are people dependent from others.

So my recommenddations for incentives pick up this issue. I see the most potential for improvement in the responisveness of the staff to the patients and the communication about medication. Which will also be the hardest part, because of the staff shortage in this area and the resulting high utilisation of the hospital staff.

In General it would also be good, to increase the Response Rate to the Surveys by giving away some Goodies or something like that for completing the Survey. Because the average Response Rate also decreased.

Like always I am open to feedback or other opinions. :-)

Best,

Jasmin