Surgical Information Systems (SIS), an industry leader focused on delivering perioperative IT to ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) and hospitals, and SPH Analytics (SPH), the leading provider of patient experience solutions for the ambulatory surgery space, announced today a partnership that delivers an integrated solution for understanding and improving patient experience in ASCs.

SIS clients will have easy access to the Ambulatory Surgery Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (OAS CAHPS®) Survey, as well as specialty-specific and general patient satisfaction surveys for surgery centers, all administered by SPH. These surveys will be enabled via an automated data interface with built-in logic to meet the requirements of the center’s patient experience program and future government regulations.

Improving patient experience is a significant focus of health systems and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid Services. Patient experience measures can reveal important system problems that have broad implications for quality, safety, and efficiency, and patient experience has been positively correlated with better health outcomes and key business financial indicators. (https://www.ahrq.gov/cahps/quality-improvement/improvement-guide/2-why-improve/index.html).

SIS and SPH recognize that patient perception plays a major role in the decision process when selecting an ASC. With the help of SIS and SPH, centers can analyze patient experience data and act on it to continuously improve and help grow business by managing their community reputation and supporting referrals. Gathering and analyzing the voice of the patient helps ASCs improve quality and achieve top patient satisfaction, as well as helps prepare them for optimal performance in pending regulatory requirements (OAS CAHPS) and to meet requirements for accreditation.

“Accreditation surveyors are paying attention to patient satisfaction,” says Ann Geier, Chief Nursing Officer, Surgical Information Systems, and a surveyor with the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, Inc. (AAAHC). “ASCs that are conducting patient surveys, doing benchmarking, and developing studies are really focused on continuous quality improvement and can demonstrate how they are using what they learn on an on-going basis.”

“We are thrilled with how the ‘voice of the patient’ has emerged as an incredible driver of impact and significance in the care continuum; and we are proud to be the market leader in collecting, synthesizing, and creating actionable insights out of the patient’s voice,” said Amy Amick, CEO of SPH Analytics. “We are so pleased to partner with SIS to bring these valuable patient insights to the ASC community. Between our two companies, we have almost 50 years of service to ASCs and hospitals, and I am delighted to help bring this powerful patient experience solution to the expansive SIS client base.”

The SIS and SPH joint solution includes:

• A seamless, automated data interface to safely transfer patient demographics from SIS business management systems to the survey delivery and analytics solution with logic to separate patients that should receive regulatory surveys from those who should receive elective patient satisfaction surveys.
• The largest benchmark of patient experience results in the ambulatory surgery market, enabling facilities to compare themselves across a wide number of attributes to national leaders and enable their improvement.
• An analytics portal that provides easy-to-analyze results, as well as near real-time feedback, enabling swift addressing of patient concerns and complaints.
• Integrated Net Promoter SystemSM analytics, one of the most recognized and effective methods for measuring patient loyalty.
• Complete survey administration by the only ASCA-endorsed OAS CAHPS survey provider, offering a level of reassurance to ASCs that their patient experience measurement needs will be met well.

“We are pleased to have these two leaders in the industry join forces to serve ASCA members. We selected SPH Analytics as our Affinity Partner to administer the OAS CAHPS survey prior to a CMS mandate because we believe our members should know where they stand in the event that reporting becomes required. This will enable our members to address identified issues and improve their survey results,” said John Greenwich, Chief Financial Officer of ASCA.”