System Safety in Healthcare: How Good Are Patient Surveys for Safety?

Dev Raheja

doi:10.56094/jss.v52i3.114

Authors

Dev Raheja

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.56094/jss.v52i3.114

Keywords:

CMS, AHRQ, HCAHPS, patient safety, patient surveys

Abstract

Recently, I was invited to give my opinion as a patient advocate during a retreat organized by three U.S. federal government groups: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Office of Health and Human Services. The topic was “Partnership for Patients.” The AHRQ showed data on the significant progress made in the last four years on Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) measures. The data showed that more and more hospitals are achieving higher scores.

Author Biography

Dev Raheja

Mr. Dev Raheja has been a System Safety and System Reliability Engineering consultant for over 25 years. His range of consulting encompasses transportation systems, electric power systems, high tech industry, aerospace, defense systems, medical systems, and consumer products. He has conducted training in several countries including Sweden, Australia, Japan, UK, Turkey, Germany, Poland, Singapore, Brazil, South Africa, and Canada. He has done training and consulting work with NASA, U.S. Army, GM, Boeing, Eaton, Nissan Aerospace, Litton, General Dynamics, ITT, BAE Systems, Lockheed-Martin, Harley-Davidson, and United Technologies.

Prior to consulting, Mr. Raheja worked at General Electric, Cooper Industries, and at Booz-Allen & Hamilton. He is the author of several books including Assurance Technologies Principles and Practices (Second Edition, Wiley 2006), and Design for Reliability (Wiley, 2012). A Fellow of the System Safety Society, he has a received Scientific Achievement Award and the Educator-of the-Year Award from the society.

Mr. Raheja serves on the Patient and Families Advisory Council at Johns Hopkins Hospital as a patient safety advocate. He is Associate Editor for Healthcare Safety for The Journal of System Safety and an Associate Professor at University of Maryland where he teaches the “Design For Reliability” course which includes design for safety and trustworthiness.