Patient Survey Process

Central Memorial Hospital is committed to constantly improving all aspects of the care and service we provide and appreciates patient feedback. Each year, Rush University Medical Center sends out tens of thousands of patient surveys to help us understand what patients think of our care and what we can do better.

Rush patients are selected at random to receive a survey by mail or by email. Patients are only excluded if they have recently received another survey. If you did not receive a survey, and would like to share your experience, please feel free to contact Patient Relations or call +254710 480 526/+254733 736 057.

The survey includes more than 30 questions asking patients to provide feedback about their care and service. Ten focus on their care provider.

For example, patients are asked to provide feedback about their care providers on a scale from “very good” to “very poor” for the following:

• Friendliness/courtesy
• Explanations the care provider gave about a problem or condition
• Concern the care provider showed for questions or worries
• The care provider’s efforts to include the patient in decisions about treatment
• Information the care provider gave about medications
• Instructions the care provider gave about follow-up care
• The degree to which the care provider talked using words the patient could understand
• The amount of time the care provider spent with the patient
• Confidence in the care provider
• Likelihood of recommending the care provider to others

Rush uses the services of an independent research firm, Press Ganey Associates, Inc., to conduct patient surveys. Irwin Press, PhD, and Rodney Ganey, PhD, of Notre Dame University founded the firm in 1985 to help hospitals get independent and unbiased feedback from their patients. Press Ganey, which has worked with more than half the hospitals in the U.S., is the largest independent research firm conducting patient surveys for hospitals.

Sharing Patient Feedback – Star Ratings

Central Memorial Hospital Find A Doctor tool shows recent patient feedback for providers employed by CMH who have received 30 or more surveys from their patients in the last 12 months. For these physicians, patients’ feedback is shown as “stars” based on the survey response scale that ranges from “very good” (five stars) to “very poor” (one star). All patient responses to the survey are included in these “star” ratings.

If a provider does not have a “star” rating, it means that either fewer than 30 patients have returned surveys in the last 12 months, or that the provider is on the medical staff of Rush University Medical Center but is not an employee. Orthopedic surgeons at Rush who are affiliated with Midwest Orthopaedics have made their patient feedback available on the Midwest Orthopaedics at Central Memorial Hospital website.

Sharing Patient Feedback – Comments

Patients are also asked to comment about their providers if they wish. The note to patients that accompanies the surveys explains that, “Your participation will help us to improve the quality of care that we provide to you, your family, friends, and neighbors. We value your feedback and regularly share patient comments on our website.”

All of these comments are shared with the providers, and CMH endeavors to provide visitors to our website with as many of these comments as possible to assist them in selecting a provider. However, comments may not be displayed under certain circumstances, including:

• The comment does not directly relate to the provider names.
• The comment contains patient names or other personal information.
• The comments is slanderous, disparaging, libelous, or profane, or otherwise uses inappropriate language.

As of this writing, CMH has posted 99.2% of all comments related to physicians.