Quality Care

BI-Powered Surveys Earn Presidential Honor

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For the first time since its 1988 inception, a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was given to a healthcare provider, and the provider's BI capability is one of the reasons why SSM Health Care (SSMHC), St. Louis, received the 2002 award. The organization attributes much of its success to its technological infrastructure, which it uses to survey, analyze, and improve patient satisfaction.

Business intelligence solutions provider Dimensional Insight Inc. has outfitted SSMHC with an electronic reporting and data analysis system, DI-WebDiver, which lets staff (unit directors, RNs, quality directors, department managers, and so on) examine patient surveys and data across 21 acute care hospitals and three nursing homes spanning four Midwestern states.

SSMHC's lead customer research consultant Rhonda Warren explains that the organization began using a PC version of DI-Diver in 1999, but shortly thereafter wanted to expand its application. "Due to the positive reception of the software by hospital personnel, more people expressed an interest in having access to the data. In Fall 2000 we [upgraded] to a Web-based version of the software allowing more people in each hospital direct access to the survey data to answer their own questions and analyze particular areas of interest," Warren says.

Performance and patient satisfaction rates "help our hospitals better understand the key drivers of patient satisfaction, allowing them to determine where they can be more effective in their improvement efforts," according to Warren.

By linking those approval ratings with medical records, SSMHC better serves its patrons as both customers and patients. "We can look at satisfaction rates of patients who had bypass surgery, for example, and link survey data back to clinical data. We have information about who their primary payor was because satisfaction rates of people by different HMOs is important, especially when negotiating contracts," Warren says.

One SSM hospital used the software to improve emergency room wait times. Employees analyzing the data noticed that the bulk of complaints came from patients dissatisfied with pain management, allowing decision makers to devise solutions that would target this specific area. "Since implementing improvement strategies, there have been no negative comments on the surveys about wait times in the third or fourth quarters of 2002, loyalty has increased the last four months, and satisfaction with pain management has increased significantly," says Warren.

— Jill Duffy

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