Emergency Department Patient Experience of Care Survey: Development and Field Test

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have implemented Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) surveys to assess patient experience in a number of settings. Following CAHPS principles, RAND researchers designed and field tested an Emergency Department Patient Experience of Care Survey that consists of three survey instruments for use with adult patients who have visited the emergency department (ED). One instrument is for use with those patients who are discharged to the community following their ED visit; the other two are for use with those patients who are admitted to the hospital from the ED (one for use on its own and one to supplement an existing inpatient survey). The authors conducted a field test of these instruments in 12 hospitals in late 2013 and early 2014 and analyzed the resulting data from 4,101 ED patients. The analyses identified four composite measures (measures composed of responses to multiple survey questions) and ten measures that are each composed of a single survey question. As of September 2014, CMS plans to conduct additional testing on these instruments.