Mixed Mode Substantially Increases Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Response Rates...

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Survey Methodology
• Health Outcomes

Background:

• Low response rates (RRs) in patient experience surveys increase hospital data collection costs and impact value-based purchasing eligibility.
• Single-mode survey approaches are common, but sequential mixed-mode (MM) strategies offer higher RRs and potentially better patient representativeness.
• Hospitals may hesitate to adopt MM due to perceived costs and complexity without clear evidence of RR improvement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify the differences in RRs and patient representation between MM and single-mode survey approaches.
• To identify hospital characteristics that correlate with significant RR gains when using MM compared to single-mode protocols (mail-only, phone-only).

Main Methods:

• A randomized controlled trial involving 17,415 patients across 51 nationally representative US hospitals.
• Patients were allocated to one of three survey modes: mail-only, phone-only, or a sequential mixed-mode (MM) approach.
• Data were analyzed to compare RRs and demographic representation across the different modes.

Main Results:

• Mixed-mode surveys achieved higher RRs across all age groups compared to mail-only or phone-only methods.
• MM surveys particularly improved the representation of younger adults (ages 18-24) and older adults (ages 65-84).
• Hospitals with lower baseline mail-only RRs experienced the most substantial RR increases with the MM approach.

Conclusions:

• Sequential mixed-mode surveys enhance patient representation, particularly for hard-to-reach demographics like young adults.
• MM strategies demonstrably increase overall hospital RRs, offering a valuable solution for improving patient data collection.
• The findings support the adoption of MM for hospitals seeking to optimize survey response rates and data quality.