Evaluations: to Point Out, or to Facilitate Change?

What is the point of performance evaluations? A pass/fail system and to point out weaknesses....is that it?

Do athletic trainers have the leadership capacity to coach colleagues to help facilitate a change in their behaviors? Are we utilizing feedback surveys effectively?

Most healthcare organizations measure patient experience using Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) surveys, the national standard for collecting, tracking, and benchmarking patient experiences. Previous studies have documented how closed-ended CAHPS patient experience survey questions help identify areas of improvement and evaluate interventions to improve the quality of care.

Patient experience survey data are used to examine the patient-centeredness of care, identify areas for improvement, and monitor interventions aimed to enhance the patient experience. Most healthcare organizations measure patient experience using Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) surveys. Studies have documented the use of CAHPS survey responses for completing public reports, monitoring internal feedback and performance, identifying areas of improvement, and evaluating interventions to improve care. However, limited evidence exists on the utility of evaluating provider-level intervention outcomes from these surveys.

The “shadow coaching” intervention has been shown to improve provider performance and patient experience scores on the CG-CAHPS overall provider rating and provider communication composite.

Healthcare organizations aim to provide patient-centered care and typically measure patient experience to assess patient-centeredness. Patient experience survey data are used to examine provider performance, identify areas for improvement, and monitor interventions to improve patient experience and patient-centeredness.

To help facilitate change the program “shadow coaching” was implemented which commissions coaches to observe providers in real-time encounters at the point of care and gives structured feedback to encourage targeted behaviors

Half the recommendations encouraged consistency of existing behaviors, the other half encouraged new behaviors, and most recommendations centered on aspects of provider communication specific enough to be actionable.

It was found that over time patient comments from the CAHPS identified overall improvements in provider behavior when compared before and after a provider-specific intervention; these improvements in provider behavior mentioned in comments reflected the medium-to-large statistically significant improvements with shadow coaching.

Quigley, Denise D. PhD; Predmore, Zachary PhD; Martino, Steven PhD; Qureshi, Nabeel; Hays, Ron D. PhD. Patient Comments on the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Clinician and Group (CG-CAHPS) Survey Reflect Improvements in Provider Behaviors From Coaching. Journal of Healthcare Management 2023: 68(4), 251-267. DOI: 10.1097/JHM-D-22-00140

Shelby 7/2024