New measures aim to improve response rates and the representativeness of CAHPS survey data

During a research meeting last September, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) program noted awareness of the concerns regarding the impact of declining response rates for surveys, including CAHPS surveys, and questions about the representativeness of the data from such surveys. A related issue, said AHRQ, is the burden of obtaining adequate samples of respondents.

These concerns have led to calls for the assessment of alternative survey formats and methods of survey administration that might improve the efficiency of data collection, increase response rates, and/or yield more accurately represent the experiences of the target population.

The audience and panelists discussed the following topics:

1. The promise and challenges of alternative survey modes
2. Strategies for encouraging survey responses
3. The potential impact of changes to survey length, design, and format

Several of the presentations concluded that a mixed mode (mail plus one or more other modes) continues to offer the best response rates, and that mail remains an effective mode of data collection. Some of the questions raised included:

The Promise and Challenges of Alternative Survey Modes:

• Relationship between email address and survey scores
• Source of the message
• Completeness of responses to an electronic survey
• Differences in responses rates for mail versus web
• Use of texts
• Impact on survey questions
• Tradeoff between cost and representativeness

Use of tablets to survey at end of stay:

• Capabilities of tablet technology
• Usefulness of near-time results
• Cost
• Challenges of telephone mode:
• Impact of survey length
• Use of telephone to invite or remind respondents

Visit AHRQ for the discussion.