Health care organizations are constantly striving to provide a more cost-effective and higher quality treatment within a caring environment. However, balancing the demands of regulatory agencies with the holistic needs of the patient is challenging. Further challenging is how to define those hospitals that provide an exceptional caring environment for their patients. By using survey tools that are already being administered in hospital settings, the opportunity exists to analyze the results obtained from these tools to define a hospital as a caring organization without the added burden of separate data collection.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. ( 2008a). HCAHPS: Patients’ perspective of care survey. Retrieved from http://www.cms.hhs.gov/HospitalQualityInits/30_HospitalHCAHPS.asp
4.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. ( 2008b, March). HCAHPS fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.cms.hhs.gov/HospitalQualityInits/
5.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. ( 2008c, March). HCAHPS telephone script. Retrieved from http://www.cms.hhs.gov/HospitalQualityInits/
6.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. ( 2009). HCAHPS: Approved vendor list. Retrieved from http://www.hcahpsonline.org/app_vendor.aspx.
7.
Creswell, J. ( 2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
8.
Greenberg, J., & Baron, R. ( 2000). Behavior in organizations (7th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
9.
Institute of HeartMath and Caring Management Consulting. ( 2009). POQA-R: Report for Chesapeake Regional Medical Center Nurse Leadership Training Matched Pairs. Boulder Creek, CA: Author.
10.
McConnell, C. ( 1999). Staff turnover: Occasional friend, frequent foe, and continuing frustration. Health Care Manager, 8, 1-13.
11.
Watson, J. ( 2009). Assessing and measuring caring in nursing and health sciences. New York, NY: Springer .
