Health Services Research, Part 2: Types of Surveys & Outcomes
Surveying the individuals an organization serves can be essential to several aspects of healthcare management. Various kinds of surveys correspond to the specific information needs of a healthcare organization during different moments of care delivery.
Health Services Research Surveys & Outcomes
1. Health Risk Assessment and Member Satisfaction Surveys
For example, a health risk assessment collects descriptive information about an individual. This includes health history, needs for accessibility and communication, and personal healthcare goals and preferences.
Member satisfaction surveys are also well-known surveys commonly used in health services research. These are created to generate information about a person’s feelings about the services they are receiving. The results are often beneficial in determining which groups are less happy with their experience and why.
2. Health Outcomes Surveys
Organizations can then use the findings to course-correct and determine how to serve their customers better. Another essential type of survey healthcare organizations use is a health outcomes survey. This survey is focused on evaluating how much change has occurred in a person’s health during their treatment by the agency.
These outcomes can be grouped into several categories:
- Knowledge (To what extent has the person learned about health problems and treatments)
- Behaviors (To what extent has there been a change in the person’s practices)
- Beliefs/Feelings (To what extent has a person’s opinions, beliefs, and values changed)
- Clinical Indicators (To what extent has change occurred to a person’s specific health indicators)
For example, if a healthcare organization wants to learn about its customers’ diet and eating habits, it may need to collect survey data on these levels.
- How much does the person know about the impact of diet on personal health (Knowledge)?
- How much and how often does the person consume certain types of healthy and unhealthy food and beverage options (Behaviors)?
- How does the person feel about various aspects of diet and nutrition (Beliefs/Feelings)?
- Has the person’s weight, blood pressure, activities of daily living (ADL), etc., changed (Clinical Indicators)?
3. What’s the Difference?
There are essential differences between surveying to assess health risks or member satisfaction and evaluating health outcomes. The first two may be cross-sectional, in that they only require information to be gathered at one point. Sometimes data is collected more than once, but it is not necessary to do so for these surveys to be helpful to an organization.
Surveys designed to measure health outcomes should be longitudinal. The organization needs to collect information on the same items from people at two points in time. This allows them to compare the same individuals to themselves over time.
For example, a satisfaction survey may show that 80% of people surveyed in June are satisfied with the customer service of the front office staff (this is an example of a beliefs/feelings item on a survey). Based on this survey, The agency can determine whether to act to increase this number. Results of satisfaction surveys can also be compared over time. This demonstrates trends for the population served by the organization.
For example, if the survey described above shows in December that the percentage of satisfied individuals dropped to 60%, this could affect the agency’s decision as to if it should undertake a specific program to improve its customer service in the front office.
Basic Statistical Procedure: Health Services Research Surveys & Outcomes
When the same person has been surveyed using all the same questions at two points in time, a basic statistical procedure known as a T-test for Paired Samples can be used. This determines if any changes to the group served are statistically significant. This statistic can easily be calculated using Microsoft Excel, and does not require complex data analysis software to generate.
The Series
Focusing specifically on developing surveys for Health Services Research studies designed to measure health outcomes, this blog series covers:
- Various types of health-related surveys and measurable outcomes
- Creating meaningful research questions
- Conceptualizing and operationalizing variables
- Developing sophisticated survey questions
Part 1: Introduction to Health Services Research
Part 2: Types of Surveys & Outcomes
Part 3: Research Questions
Part 4: Conceptual & Operational Definitions
Part 5: arget=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Writing Survey Questions
For more information, check out:
Crestline Advisors
Compliance Resource Center
Resources Include
http://www.ahrq.gov/cahps/surveysguidance.htm
http://www.hosonline.org/Content/Default.aspx
http://www.rand.org/health/surveys_tools.html
Aday, Lu Ann and Llewellyn J. Cornelius, 2006. “Designing and Conducting Health Surveys: A Comprehensive Guide,” Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, CA.
As an experienced health care professional, Susan (Sue) Dess brings many experiences to Crestline. Her 15-year administrative and executive management background spans the operations of both managed care and provider organizations.
Additionally, Sue spent 25 years as an Emergency Room and Intensive Care Registered Nurse.
