The right tool for the right job: the value of alternative patient experience measures

Abstract

Patient-reported experience of care predicts health care outcomes. Fourteen US and Canadian practices intercalated a standard ambulatory care Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey within their usual Internet-based survey to compare results from the Internet survey, Internet CAHPS survey, and a mailed CAHPS survey. They found that practice performance rankings obtained via the multi-item CAHPS survey were equivalent to a single measure captured by the Internet survey.