Variation in Family Experience of Pediatric Inpatient Care As Measured by Child HCAHPS

BACKGROUND: Making national comparisons of family experience of inpatient pediatric care has been limited by the lack of a publicly available survey. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services commissioned development of the Child Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey to address this gap. Using Child Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey, we measured performance of hospitals in a national field test. METHODS: We analyzed 17 727 surveys completed from December 2012 to February 2014 by parents of children (<18 years) hospitalized at 69 hospitals in 34 states. For each of 18 survey measures, we calculated a case-mix-adjusted hospital "top-box" score (ie, percentage of respondents selecting the most positive response option). We quantified variation across hospitals by estimating hospital-level SDs for each item with a hierarchical linear probability model. We examined associations of family experience with patient, parent, and hospital characteristics. We compared aggregate performance on each measure across participating hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: Family experience of pediatric inpatient care shows substantial room for improvement and varies considerably across hospitals and measures.