Internal and external benchmarking with EvaSys Healthcare

The Celle General Hospital (AKH Celle), founded in 1846, currently handles approximately 1,400 patients per day. In August 2005, EvaSys Healthcare was introduced to AKH Celle to continuously carry out independent patient surveys.

Patient surveys were already being carried out in AKH Celle, which has 639 beds and is one of the largest hospitals in Lower Saxony, Germany, since 2001, although they were being outsourced.

“The ability to run surveys internally and independently within the hospital is of the greatest advantage,” explained Dr. Jörg Zimmermann, Quality Director.

Through EvaSys Healthcare large amounts of data are now quickly and efficiently processed using a high performance scanner. The previous manual creation of databases in Excel and the complex analysis programming are now unnecessary. Instead, the data is automatically and graphically processed. Upon request, the resulting report will be forwarded to the appropriate staff members via e-mail. “With EvaSys Healthcare, we can now run continuous surveys and implement several projects. Also, the number of survey participants has improved,” says Dr. Jörg Zimmermann.

Through EvaSys the preparation of surveys in EvaSys Healthcare is user friendly. For design, the user is supported by an integrated web-based editor. The questions can be formulated at liberty or selected from a question library. AKH Celle also uses the form software TeleForm as an extentsion to EvaSys.

AKH Celle has created several surveys as part of the ISO quality management system, for patients, staff, admissions and care. Dr. Jörg  Zimmermann describes the approach in the following manner: “We have 27,000 inpatients per year and they each receive a survey from the nursing staff before their dismissal. This allows them to return them to special collection boxes. Soon we will also run a regular staff survey which will be returned anonymously through our internal post system.”

In addition to regular surveys, AKH Celle patients are randomly contacted directly. There are also several smaller projects, such as in the oncology, endoscopy and outpatient centres.

The data obtained from the patient satisfaction surveys allows concrete measures to be taken. Since all data collected in AKH Celle can be saved over the years, long term comparisons within the hospital become possible.“By holding continuous, benchmarked patient satisfaction surveys, we wish to recognise complaints early on,” explains Dr. Jörg Zimmermann.

External benchmarking, by using comparative data from other hospitals is also possible using EvaSys Healthcare. This can be done in collaboration with other systems. Thus, AKH Celle, in cooperation with the Braunschweig Hospital is currently conducting a separate, comprehensive survey for external benchmarking. The comparison data is valuable to draw conclusions regarding the service provided and customer satisfaction. The data pool will expand in future.

“Our expectations of EvaSys Healthcare have been fully met” Dr. Jörg Zimmermann, Quality Director, AKH Celle.

Additional Information:

In November 2005 AKH Celle and the Agnes Karll Hospital in Laatzen, Germany received the Lower Saxony Quality Award. This award for exemplary commitment to patient orientation shows how important successful quality management based on patient surveys is. AKH Celle is currently planning an implementation of EvaSys Healthcare in their other clinics.

System introduction: August 2005
Software: EvaSys Healthcare V3.1
Number of surveys evaluated per year: approximately 27,000