Five Start Pain Scores

Five Star Pain Scores

Cortes

Leadership Theory NUR4835

St. Petersburg College

October 4, 2015

Five Star Pain Scores        

Introduction

        Pain is an international problem affecting approximately 20% of the world’s population (Lin, LeBoulluec, Zeng, Chen, & Gatchel, 2014).  Pain is a major healthcare issue in the United Sates (US) also.  Approximately one third of the US population is affected by chronic pain.  The annual cost of chronic pain in the US is approximately $600 billion dollars.  This cost accounts for medical expenditures, pain treatments, and economic factors such as decreased productivity, lost wages and disability payments (Dworkin, 2012/2013).  

        Unfortunately, the patients in the transitional care unit (TCU) at a local hospital are reporting less than optimal pain scores when responding to the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey.  The HCAHPS survey is a data collection tool used by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to measure patient satisfaction.  The data is then reported on the Medicare.gov Hospital Compare website where it is accessible to the public. Data is reported by star ratings and percentages.  (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, n.d.).  In order to achieve ideal healthcare outcomes and optimal healthcare reimbursement from CMS, it is imperative that the TCU staff do a better job at managing their patients’ pain, to earn five star ratings.

        Pain management affects healthcare outcomes by allowing patients to have increased mobility, increased functionality, and faster recovery times.  It also decreases the risks of complications such as embolus, myocardial infarction, ileus and urinary retention, to name a few.  Adequate pain management allows patients and their families the ability to cope with the stress of an illness and decreases the length of stay and readmissions, increases patient satisfaction and decreases overall healthcare costs (Glowacki, 2015).

Pain Management Impact

        The general impact of pain management on nursing leadership nation-wide varies, from poor scores on patient satisfaction surveys to poor patient outcomes.  CMS has a pay for performance program which will pay more money to hospitals when patients give good scores on their HCAHPS surveys (Glowacki, 2015).  Nursing leadership will be forced to ensure patient satisfaction in order to receive maximum reimbursement for their hospital.  Nursing leaders will have to develop processes to manage their patients’ pain effectively, teach nursing staff these processes and hold them accountable for following them.  Patient health outcomes are also affected by pain management.  Patients are more likely to have fewer complications and to recover faster when their pain is well managed (Glowacki, 2015).