Additionally, he said, the hospital offers patient satisfaction representatives, who check in on patients and try to address any questions or concerns. “I’ve made it a mission to daily go in, myself, and talk to patients,” he said.
BY COLIN M. STEWART
STEPHENS MEDIA
cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com
HILO — The most recent results from Hilo Medical Center’s patient satisfaction surveys show that the hospital continues to lag behind state and national averages in most key areas.
While HMC’s scores remain below average, it has made improvements, administrators point out. Additionally, because the most recent scores available are for 2010, they represent where the hospital “has been — and in the case of HMC, not yet accurately reporting where the hospital is today, given the dedicated effort over the last year to improve the patient experience,” said Director of Marketing Mary Stancill.
The satisfaction scores, available at hospitalcompare.hhs.gov, represent a random sampling of 10 questions answered by patients who stayed in the hospital for at least one night during 2010.
In perhaps the most telling statistic contained within the findings, only 46 percent of patients surveyed said they would “definitely recommend” HMC. That represented an increase of 1 percentage point from the same surveys completed in 2009.
Meanwhile, the Big Isle’s other hospitals were more highly regarded by their customers. Fifty-seven percent of Kona Community Hospital’s patients said they would “definitely recommend” it, and 78 percent of North Hawaii Community Hospital’s patients said they would do the same. The state average was 65 percent, and the national average was 70 percent.
According to Stancill, comparing HMC with other Big Island facilities doesn’t provide an “apples-to-apples comparison” of Hawaii’s most similar, large hospitals. She pointed to Maui Memorial and Oahu’s The Queen’s Medical Center as more accurate comparisons. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they would recommend Maui Memorial, while 83 percent said they would recommend The Queen’s. In general, both hospitals outscored Hilo Medical Center on the other questions, although in some cases the difference was small.
In a phone interview on Wednesday afternoon, CEO Howard Ainsley said he and his staff have been placing more focus on the patient experience at HMC in the past year, and the 2010 results do not reflect those efforts to a large degree.
“One thing we’ve done is we’ve initiated an Achieving Excellence Institute,” he said. “It’s a training program our employees go through, a daylong training, and it’s focused on service excellence and making sure our team understands our priorities.”
Additionally, he said, the hospital offers patient satisfaction representatives, who check in on patients and try to address any questions or concerns. “I’ve made it a mission to daily go in, myself, and talk to patients,” he said.