Press Ganey and HCAHPS

By Daniel Kessler, Sara Leslie
2009 | Case No. P72
In 2002, the Bush Administration launched the Hospital Quality Initiative, which was intended to improve quality through accountability and public disclosure and to “empower consumers with quality of care information to make more informed decisions about their health care, and encourage providers and clinicians to improve the quality of health care.” To achieve the Administration’s goals, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced that it would develop a program to survey patients’ satisfaction to determine hospital quality. When Mel Hall, the CEO of Press Ganey, a leading healthcare performance measurement and improvement company, learned of CMS’s proposal, he was concerned. The Administration seemed largely unaware of the existing market for patient satisfaction surveys, a market in which Press Ganey was intimately involved. This case studies how a private healthcare performance measurement company responds a government effort to improve quality reporting and standardize hospital surveys. It highlights the private company’s decisions regarding both its business strategy as well as its potential to affect public policy.
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