Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals have outperformed non-VA hospitals in two major independent, nationwide reviews for patient satisfaction and care quality.
VA hospitals outperformed non-VA hospitals in the most recent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) star ratings, with 79 percent of VA facilities receiving a summary star rating of 4 or 5 stars compared to 40 percent of non-VA hospitals, Undersecretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal told reporters during an Aug. 30 call.
The ratings come as VA continues to deliver more care to more veterans than ever before, he added. In the two years since the enactment of the PACT Act, nearly 740,000 veterans have enrolled in VA health care, a 33 percent increase over the previous two-year period. VA is on pace to deliver 127 million healthcare appointments in 2024, surpassing last year’s record of 120 million.
“We’re offering more care to more veterans than ever before, and we are exceeding on all metrics, both patient experience metrics and overall hospital quality and patient safety metrics, when we are comparing apples to apples with civilian sector hospitals,” Elnahal said.
HCAHPS measures how satisfied patients are with their experience after they have been discharged from the hospital. Elnahal said it gathers data on staff communication and responsiveness, hospital environment of care, willingness to recommend the hospital and other criteria.
In this year’s CMS Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating, more than 58 percent of VA hospitals received four or five-star ratings, compared to 40 percent of non-VA hospitals. Elnahal noted that this is only the second year VA hospitals have been included in the review.
“Those CMS ratings aim to improve patients' ability to make informed decisions on where they get their healthcare,” he said.
Elnahal said the Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating survey measures mortality, safety of care, readmission, patient experience, and timely and effective care. Scores were based on data collected between July 2019 and March 2023.
Elnahal added, “veterans deserve to understand where VA hospitals and clinics are performing.”
“We do have some one star facilities, we have some two star facilities, we are nowhere near perfect or where we need to be,” admitted Elnahal. “This is a continuous improvement effort.”
VA offers support from its National Improvement Office to its hospitals that have underperformed on the CMS scale and VA’s internal scale.
VA’s most recent outpatient survey results show that 92 percent of its patients trust the care they receive at its clinics and ambulatory settings, Elnahal said.
“We’ve made millions more veterans eligible for VA health care under the PACT Act – and now, we want to make sure that every one of them gets timely access to the world-class care they deserve,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough in a statement. “Whenever a veteran sets foot in a VA facility, we want them to know that they are getting the very best care this nation has to offer – and we won’t ever settle for anything less.”
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com
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