 Consumer Assessment of Health Providers and Systems (CAHPS)®
The purposes of the Delaware CAHPS projects are to present information on how
Delawareans rate various healthcare providers and report on their specific
experiences with the healthcare system. Sponsored by the Delaware Health
Care Commission and in collaboration with the University's Center for Applied Demography and Survey Research, IPA's CAHPS reports are useful guides to policymakers seeking
to improve both Delaware's health plans and the health care that providers
deliver to patients. Reporting quality information is a critical step toward
improving quality of care and slowing down the skyrocketing costs of health
care. Making quality information public improves quality of care, because
consumers—armed with quality data—will demand the best while providers
become incentivized to meet that demand. Studies show that providers improve
the quality of the care they provide when they know that their performance
will be monitored publicly.
The term CAHPS refers to a comprehensive and evolving family of surveys that ask consumers and patients to evaluate the interpersonal aspects of health care. CAHPS surveys probe those aspects of care for which consumers and patients are the best and/or only source of information, as well as those that consumers and patients have identified as being important. The CAHPS surveys were created by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and further developed by Harvard Medical School, RAND and the Research Triangle Institute. These organizations developed the CAHPS methodology and survey instrument, which IPA subsequently tailored for use in Delaware. For more information, e-mail Eric
Jacobson or call him at 302-831-1711. |
