In December 2008, HHC Connectx Corporate office (125 Worth Street) mailed questionnaires to MetroPlus community providers (PCPs, specialists, community health centers, office managers) assigned to each HHC facility and emailed additional surveys to all system active HHCAdvantage users. Respondents faxed or mailed back completed forms to our office for review.

Survey Findings (February 2009)

• Generally, community-based Primary Care Physicians & Specialists who responded to the survey feel that our Referral Staff is knowledgeable, courteous, and responsive to their needs.  With 95% of respondents expressing positive relationships between community physicians and community referral staff, this implies that our Community Referral office staff is addressing the overall needs of the community physicians.  This compares to 73% of respondents in last year’s survey who expressed similar satisfaction with the level of customer service from our referral staff. 
• The majority of respondents were satisfied with the quality and timeliness of consult reports returned to them for patients referred to and treated at HHC facilities.  The most common complaint among those who were less than satisfied was that consult reports were not returned at all.  For those who do receive reports, some claimed that the reports lacked relevant information, were not timely, or were illegible; however, these claims were less common and were not specific to any given facility.   
• Respondents were generally satisfied with the overall access to HHC facilities. In addition, approximately 78% of community-based physicians surveyed recognized HHC’s effective notification regarding no-shows as well as facilitation in admitting referred patients.   
• In terms of scheduling appointments, the majority (~74%) of respondents indicated that HHC hospitals were effective and generally perform better than other hospitals to which they refer.   
• Although some physicians reported positive feedback from their patients regarding their experiences at HHC facilities, the majority of patients have patients have expressed concern to their PCPs regarding the lack of communication from hospital physicians regarding their treatment plan and follow-up. 
• Survey respondents who are currently using HHCAdvantage to submit referrals electronically (62% of respondents) are generally satisfied with the system.  A small portion of users (12%) noted issues with the system, which we are currently addressing through re-training sessions and individual follow-up.

Survey Implications & Recommendations

Although the survey demonstrated a positive relationship between the community-based physician (and/or office manager) and hospital referral staff, the findings also reveal new opportunities for HHC to enhance its service offerings and communications with community physicians.

Following are some ways that the survey results can be used to maximize the effectiveness and the satisfaction of community-based physicians:

1.      Further streamline referral management process and train Referral Staff to ensure needs of referring community physician are met.

2.      In addition to implementation of HHC Advantage, support processes for consult report completion and return should be addressed and improved to ensure timely & accurate completion.

3.      Examine current communication process between hospital physician and patient to ensure that treatment plan information and follow-up is communicated clearly to patients prior to discharge from HHC facility.

4.      Continue to expand training on HHCAdvantage until majority, if not all, of referring community-based providers are submitting referrals electronically.

5.      Increase our marketing efforts for the HHC Connectx program as a whole but particularly surrounding public website and training sessions that are open to community physicians, in order to increase our network and maintain high satisfaction levels among our physicians and staff. 

We plan to collect feedback from our community physicians on an annual basis to ensure that we continue to improve our processes and service delivery to their patients.

We thank our network community physicians for their participation in our survey.