NEWS BRIEFS
NEWS BRIEFS
Happy employees = happy patients, study says
Press, Ganey reports direct correlation
There is a direct correlation between employee satisfaction and patient satisfaction, according to a study by Press, Ganey Associates, a South Bend, IN-based health care satisfaction measurement firm.
Taking a number of hospitals’ patient satis faction and employee satisfaction scores during the same period, the firm plotted the information and calculated the correlation between the two, according to a recent report issued by the company.
Results showed the hospitals with the lowest employee satisfaction had the lowest patient satisfaction, and the hospitals with the highest employee satisfaction had the highest patient satisfaction. The relationship is so consistent, the report explains, that the correlation coefficient, which expresses a perfect relationship as 1.0, was .89, with no outliers.
The report, quoting from studies in The Manager’s Desk Reference by Cynthia Berryman-Fink and Charles B. Fink of the American Management Association in New York City, says 99% of all employees are motivated by one of the following seven needs: achievement, power, affiliation, autonomy, esteem, safety and security, and equity.
Drawing from the list above, Press, Ganey researchers looked at which issues are most related to employee satisfaction for health care workers. The results show that issues dealing with wages, benefits, and physical environment are not nearly as related to satisfaction as issues of communication, worker attitude, and management practices.
The item most related to overall satisfaction dealt with "the level of pride felt." The item least related to overall satisfaction was "adequacy of medical insurance."
[Editor’s note: For additional information on the Press, Ganey report, call the organization at (800) 232-8032.]
Most hospitals are Y2K compliant, AHA reports
Bulk of costs are in capital
Hospitals will spend up to $8.2 billion to be year 2000 (Y2K) compliant, according to a recent survey by the American Hospital Association (AHA) in Chicago.
On average, the survey found, hospitals with:
• 100 beds or less will spend $436,000 each;
• 100 to 300 beds will spend $1.2 million each;
• 300 to 500 beds will spend $3.4 million each;
• 500 beds or more will spend $8.6 million each.
The survey says most of the hospitals’ costs to become Y2K compliant (68%) come from capital expenditures such as modifying or replacing information systems hardware. The other 32% represent operational expenses such as assigning staff to work on Y2K changes and hiring consultants.
The majority of the nation’s hospitals expect to be completely Y2K compliant by Jan. 1, the survey results show. Although approximately one-third say they won’t be completely compliant, systems directly related to patient care will be. Less than 1% of hospitals currently predict possible "adverse effects" in their criti cal operations.
More than 60% of respondents cited lack of information from suppliers as the No. 1 barrier to achieving total Y2K compliance.
(For more information, visit AHA’s Web site at this address: www.aha.org.)
Profit margins down, hospital analysis shows
Fourth-quarter 1998 hospital operating margins dropped by 45% compared to the same period in 1997, according to an analysis by HBS International (HBSI), a Bellevue, WA-based health care outcomes management company.
Data used for the analysis come from 437 hospitals that have an extended history of reporting quarterly financial and operational data to HBSI.
For full-year 1998, the profit margins of the reporting hospitals, the majority of which are nonprofit, decreased by 24% from the year before, Greg Bennett, president and CEO of HBSI said in a prepared statement. HBSI’s analysis also showed that 27% of the hospitals had negative operating margins in the fourth quarter of 1998.
The nation’s largest hospitals experienced the most sizable declines. Fourth-quarter operating margins for hospitals with 300 or more beds dropped 51% compared to the same period in 1997, while hospitals with 100 to 299 beds showed a 45% decline, and hospitals with 99 or fewer beds had a decline of 31%.
The area showing the greatest decline was the Southeast Central region (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee), with the average margin plummeting 117% — from 3.77% in fourth quarter 1997 to minus 0.66 percent in the fourth quarter of 1998.
The downward trend in margins was consistent across all regions with the exception of the South Atlantic region (Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia), which showed a slight increase of 3.4%.
Subscribe Now for Access
You have reached your article limit for the month. We hope you found our articles both enjoyable and insightful. For information on new subscriptions, product trials, alternative billing arrangements or group and site discounts please call 800-688-2421. We look forward to having you as a long-term member of the Relias Media community.