Patient satisfaction up at HMC

HILO — Hilo Medical Center continues to win new fans in its ongoing efforts to rebrand itself as a facility offering top-quality health care, despite continuing to lag behind state and national benchmarks on key metrics.

Hospital administrators say the facility has focused for many years now on reversing public perceptions of HMC, and those efforts appear to be paying off, with patient opinions steadily swaying.

In particular, the hospital has shown consistent growth over the last five years on a number of key questions posed in a survey of patients aimed at gauging their experience while at the hospital.

The latest results show HMC putting up its highest-ever scores in seven of 10 categories, while tying two previous high scores. Meanwhile, its scores inched closer to state and national averages, while remaining below both in all but two metrics.

In only one metric, gauging whether patients felt staff had always explained about medicines before administering them, did the hospital take a step backward from its own previous performance.

Despite the continued progress, Dan Brinkman, East Hawaii Regional CEO of Hawaii Health Systems Corp., said he feels the hospital has more work to do.

“Right now, we’re ranked as a three-star facility. Our goal is to at least be a four-star facility. Realistically, being a five-star might be a little out of reach when you consider our finances. But we think we can be a four-star,” he said.

The star ratings are a relatively new way for hospitals to be easily compared, based on a total of 32 survey responses, which are reported in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems. Hilo Medical Center earned three stars, while Kona Community Hospital earned two and North Hawaii Community Hospital earned four. Data was not available for Ka‘u Hospital.

Brinkman said there are plenty of roadblocks that have stood in the way of HMC increasing its performance, mostly related to finances and its service area, but staff have shown the ability to modify the way they work to benefit their patients.

“There are certain realities that make it challenging, but not impossible,” he said. “Certainly, a piece of patient satisfaction is amenities … like having private rooms, and those are luxuries that having a lot of resources can bring.

“We can make progress,” he added, “it just takes longer.”

Hilo Medical Center’s biggest stride came in the arena of cleanliness, with 78 percent of respondents saying their room and bathroom were always clean, compared with 73 percent saying the same thing last year. That metric proved to be the one area where the hospital bested both the state and national averages, which stand at 75 percent and 74 percent, respectively.

Other notable increases were made in patients reporting they always received help as soon as they wanted, which jumped from 67 percent to 70 percent, and in the number of patients who said they would definitely recommend the hospital, which climbed from 57 percent to 60 percent.

A new metric was recently added to the survey report, asking patients whether they strongly agreed that they understood their care when they left the hospital. That marked HMC’s lowest score, which was 46 percent, seven percentage points behind the state and six behind the national average.

The largest disparity between HMC’s scores and those of the state and national averages remained in the area of patients saying areas around their room were always quiet at night. While the hospital has improved its showing by seven percentage points since 2009 using technology like noise canceling, the old building continues to present problems when it comes to keeping rooms quiet, Brinkman has said. Sixty-one percent of patients in the state, and 62 percent of patients across the country, report their rooms are always quiet.

Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.