UConn Health has a long-standing partnership with Press Ganey. Press Ganey (PG) is a third-party vendor specializing in patient experience and healthcare performance measurement. PG has led the healthcare industry in helping clients transform the patient experience for more than 30 years. PG administers various surveys to UConn Health patients. The patients complete the surveys and provide feedback about their perception of their care experience.

Patients are surveyed, either by mail or email, by PG. UConn Health surveys patients based on their recent care experience. This can be from a recent inpatient hospital stay, an outpatient ambulatory medical office visit, or a recent procedure at our Procedures Center.

Here is the complete list of our patient Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) and PG surveys:

• Inpatient – HCAHPS (CMS Mandated)
• Emergency Department – ED CAHPS
• Medical Practice – CG CAHPS
• Outpatient Ambulatory Surgery – OAS CAHPS (CMS Mandated as of January 1, 2024)
• Outpatient Services (Blood Draw, Radiology, and Rehabilitation) – Press Ganey Targeted Survey
• Outpatient Oncology and Infusion Services – Press Ganey Targeted Survey

We believe in the power of choice and want to provide the information a patient needs to make a thoughtful choice when selecting a provider. Therefore, our HCAHPS (inpatient) results are publicly reported based on four consecutive quarters of patient surveys. Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes updated HCAHPS results four times a year on its Hospital Compare website. Starting January 1, 2024, CMS will publicly report our OAS CAHPS performance.

We are committed to upholding the highest standards for safe, high-quality, patient-centered care. Patient feedback helps us identify opportunities for improvement and recognize those areas in which we excel from their input and feedback.

Based on the type of care service provided, CMS or Press Ganey determines the survey eligibility criteria; UConn Health patients are randomly invited to complete a mail or email survey to give feedback on their care experience. Patient participation is voluntary.

What questions are asked on the patient surveys?

The survey questions ask the patient to evaluate how well their provider or care team communicated with them, listened to them, the cleanliness of the facility, or how well staff demonstrated courtesy and respect, along with other related care experience questions. The survey results evaluate patients' overall perception of care experience and help us identify areas for patient experience improvement.

How do we measure our patient experience performance?

We use Press Ganey’s digital self-service reporting platform, PGFusion. This reporting platform offers department-level access to dashboards to track, trend, and identify team performance and progress.

The PGFusion reporting platform delivers standard reports to all areas to help us identify priorities and focus areas based on our patient survey responses. This platform is a tool to deliver the survey results and help use the data to tell patients’ stories and make meaningful improvements based on our patient feedback.

The PGFusion platform also provides survey data to our physicians, unit, and clinic leaders to track, trend, and investigate performance variation. Most importantly, we can take meaningful action, solicit employee feedback, set goals, and drive accountability.

Last but not least, we take pride in the countless opportunities to share recognition and notes of gratitude directly from the voice of our patients to our staff. PGFusion captures the patient comments from the survey to allow staff recognition for delivering safe, high-quality, respectful patient-centered care.

Resources

Definition of CAHPS Surveys:

• HCAHPS – Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems
• ED CAHPS – Emergency Department Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems
• CG CAHPS – Clinician and Group Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems
• OAS CAHPS – Outpatient Ambulatory Surgery Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems

For Leaders Only: For PGFusion training or general questions related to PGFusion dashboard interpretation, contact the Office of Patient Experience at opx@uchc.edu.

To access PGFusion with your login from your browser, type pressganey.com.

Our Inpatient Patient Experience Performance

What are Top Box scores?

Top Box Scores are the most ideal, favorable survey responses we can receive from a patient. For example, if a patient responds with a yes, definitely to the question, would you recommend our hospital to your family and friends – that is a top box score!

Our patient experience scores are shared quarterly with our senior leaders, including the Board (Clinical Affairs Subcommittee). Our senior leaders and our Board support and encourage data transparency and value the importance of safe, quality, and patient-centered care delivery at UConn Health.

Provider Star Ratings and Reviews

We proudly partner with NRC Health to provide star ratings and reviews for our providers. This helps provide full transparency that will help our patients and prospective patients select a healthcare provider.

Who is NRC Health?

NRC Health is the third-party vendor selected for our reputation management solution that will aggregate, manage, and publish provider ratings and verbatim reviews.

How is this done?

NRC Health leverages feedback from our third-party survey vendor, Press Ganey, to publish verified consumer ratings and reviews on our website. This enables us to paint a more accurate picture of the quality of care from our providers.

In partnership with NRC Health, UConn Health provides a multi-level review of patient comments before publishing them to the UConn Health website and Provider Directory.

Each week, ratings and responses to UConn Health patient surveys conducted by Press Ganey are submitted to NRC Health. NRC converts the survey’s 1-to-5 scale (5 being the best rating) to calculate a Star Rating for the provider, department, and UConn Health overall.

The Star Rating is an average of all responses about the patient's experiences with and ratings of their health care providers.

NRC calculates the patient's ratings, reviews, and comments on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best score. Comments are submitted by patients and reflect their views and opinions.

Keep in mind that other criteria also determine whether ratings are posted. For example, surveys are not sent for newly joined providers to UConn Health (less than six months), and comments are not posted until a minimum of 30 completed surveys are received.