HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) is a national, standardized survey of hospital patients. HCAHPS (pronounced “H-caps”) was created to publicly report the patient’s perspective of hospital care. The survey asks a random sample of recently discharged patients about important aspects of their hospital experience.

The HCAHPS results posted on Hospital Compare (https://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/search.html) allow consumers to make comparisons between hospitals, and to compare individual hospitals to state and national averages/benchmarks.

Communication between patients and their nurses is an important part of quality healthcare. A higher score may indicate that a hospital provides a higher level of patient care.

About this measure

The questions asked for this measure are: “During this hospital stay…how often did nurses treat you with courtesy and respect?, … how often did nurses listen carefully to you?, … how often did nurses explain things in a way you could understand?” Possible responses are Never, Sometimes, Usually, and Always. The measure reflects the percentage of respondents who answered Always to these questions.

Note: In this measure, a higher number is better.