After a healthcare experience at VA or in the community,
Veterans may become eligible to receive an inpatient, primary care, specialty care, or community care SHEP survey.
In total,
the SHEP program sends out over 1.8 million surveys each year.
Each step on the journey of a SHEP survey
from mailing to analysis to reporting, is systematically designed to provide robust, reliable,
and representative results for your facility.
So, what does this the journey of a shep survey look like?
The first step in this journey is to determine if a Veteran with a recent care experience
is eligible to receive a SHEP survey.
On a monthly basis,
the SHEP team compiles a listing of Veterans who were discharged from an inpatient unit
or had a visit with a primary care provider, with a specialist, or in the community.
This list is then narrowed down to only include patients who meet eligibility criteria.
These criteria vary by survey
and take into account information like principal diagnosis at discharge for hospital stays
and type of visit for outpatient care.
This new, refined list is called the sample frame.
Once the sample frame is defined,
Veterans are randomly selected from the frame to receive a SHEP survey.
The sampling process is designed to gather enough responses to accurately
reflect perceptions of patient experience at your facility.
Veterans who have been sampled are first contacted two to six weeks after their healthcare encounter.
Those who had an outpatient visit will receive a letter inviting them to complete the survey.
Veterans with an email address on file at VA
will also receive an email notification to fill out the survey online.
Those who had an inpatient stay
will receive the survey by mail only.
This is done to conform to guidelines for publicly reported data
established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Patients have four to six weeks to fill out and return their survey
and may receive up to two reminders within this time period.
Once surveys are returned,
mail and online responses are combined and weighted to account for differences in
sample selection probabilities and varying response rates by age and gender.
SHEP survey results are delivered in various types of reports, including Excel, PowerPoint, and Word-based documents.
For example, Dimensions of Care, Question Level, and Response Level reports each emphasize different key aspects of the results.
In addition, the SHEP Cube is an interactive analytics platform
that allows users to apply pre-set “views” or customize their own report
to include score trending, response rates, and demographics of respondents.
The SHEP program also provides advanced analytics
such as VISN level Data Deep Dives and attributable effects analyses to identify key drivers and areas of opportunity.
All of this is available on the SHEP website,
and SHEP reporting is periodically updated to fit the needs of those using the data.
Delivering patient experience results into the hands of VA staff marks the end of a SHEP survey’s journey,
but is just the beginning of improving the experiences of Veterans at your facility.
The SHEP survey process is carried out with such attention to detail
To ensure reliable and valid results.
This means that facility leaders, providers, and staff can rely on SHEP data
as the basis for improvement in service
of VA’s commitment to provide high quality care for Veterans.