Patient-centered communication: an extension of the HCAHPS survey
Benchmarking: An International Journal
ISSN: 1463-5771
Article publication date: 13 January 2021
Issue publication date: 30 June 2021
Abstract
Purpose
The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) has been recognized as a “gold standard” set of “practical standardized measures” for assessing hospital service quality. Beginning with the HCAHPS, the purpose of this paper is to extend efforts to assess patient-centered communication (PCC) and the quality of healthcare and presents a scale for measuring patient perceptions and expectations of service quality in an emerging economy context.
Design/methodology/approach
A self-administered survey of patients in private hospitals (N = 171) was conducted to test the proposed framework. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to establish the measurement model. Multiple regression analysis was used to explain the scale's predictive ability. ANOVA was used to analyze service quality gaps and rank patients' priorities.
Findings
Five components of PCC are identified. Among these, nurse affective communication has a significant positive effect on patient satisfaction. The gap analysis shows that patients have high expectations for doctors' affective communication, while they perceive a low level of service performance in the realm of nurse affective communication. The study highlights a new means of measuring “reliability” in healthcare. Important findings on patients' priorities are evaluated and discussed.
Practical implications
Healthcare organizations and practitioners can improve patient-centered care by stressing the dimensions of PCC, including clinicians' affective and instrumental communication.
Originality/value
The study expands the understanding of HCAHPS instruments in an emerging economy context and opens avenues for more widespread use of the measures. The research contributes to the literature on patient-centered care and healthcare service quality by proposing a scale for managing specific practices and interactions in healthcare.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Disclosure statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authorsFunding statement: The study was funded by Universiti Brunei Darussalam (Ref. file: UBD/AVC-R/1.22). The funding body was not involved in the study.
Citation
Islam, S. and Muhamad, N. (2021), "Patient-centered communication: an extension of the HCAHPS survey", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 28 No. 6, pp. 2047-2074. https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-07-2020-0384
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited