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Q: Why focus on the nurse voice?

A: Nurses collectively see more of the end-to-end care than any other group in the hospital, are well educated to know what quality should be, are courageous and honest in speaking out, and are deeply trusted by the community. This critical combination makes nurses a powerful group to listen to when working to understand the quality of care in a hospital. 

 

Q: Is participation in this study optional?

A: CareLuminate invites all hospitals in the studied metro area to ask their nurses to participate in this study. This can be done by sending out the study link with a request for honest feedback. Hospitals that participate by encouraging all of their nurses will be recognized in the report as a 'transparency supporter' (see an example on page 7 of the Example Report). 

 

If a hospital's leadership wishes not to participate, CareLuminate will independently work to capture the voice of nurses that work at that facility. Our commitment is to the community and to providing them with a complete assessment of the care quality in their community.

 

Occasionally, hospital leaders might make significant efforts to stifle this important reporting. In some of these cases, CareLuminate will validate these efforts made against the report's transparency reporting and include comments detailing actions taken against transparency by a hospital's leadership. 

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Q: How are nurses contacted and interviewed?

A: Nurses are contacted through many channels including email, phone, social media, advertisements, union encouragement, and peer introductions. 

Every nurse interview is validated, along with their nursing license number, to ensure that only nurses working in a hospital can participate. 

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Q: What questions are asked?

A: CareLuminate has developed it own survey as no industry/academic standard survey has been developed to date to ask nurses about their consumer choices based on their work experience. 

CareLuminate welcomes feedback on the survey questions from all hospitals, experts and from our Advisory Board. 

The full CareLuminate survey can be seen HERE.

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Q: Who will receive the results of this study? 

A: CareLuminate will create two reports from these findings. A summary report (see example HERE), usually 6-10 pages, will be generated and distributed to all hospitals, participating nurses, interested news media, payers, consumer and employers in the region. 

A second deeper report detailing all of the findings of the study will be available for purchase by hospitals, payers, government, brokers, staffing agencies and brokers.

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Q: How many RNs will CareLuminate interview from my hospital?

A: CareLuminate interviews more RNs at larger hospitals, with a focus of interviewing roughly 1 RN for every 10 beds at a hospital. Below are the CareLuminate minimum survey levels for hospitals of different sizes. If CareLuminate in unable to achieve these levels, the hospital will be marked as 'early data' and will not be eligible for receiving a Nurses' Choice award. CareLuminate is confident in its ability to reach these levels for all hospitals over 100 beds in a study:

• Hospitals of 1-75 Beds: 10+ Interviews

• Hospitals of 76-150 Beds: 15 Interviews

• Hospitals of 151-250 Beds: 20+ Interviews

• Hospitals of 251-400 Beds: 30+ Interviews

• Hospitals of 401-600 Beds: 40+ Interviews

• Hospitals of >600 Beds: 50+ Interviews

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Q: Will there be a 'winner' in this study, and if so does the 'winning' hospital need to pay to promote their win?

A: In every market CareLuminate will recognize a Nurses' Choice Highest Quality Care and Nurses' Choice Most Recommended. The criteria as are follows:

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• For the Nurses' Choice Most Recommended Award:

  • The hospital must meet the minimum number of interviews for the hospital bed size (see above). 

  • The hospital must have the highest percentage of RNs recommending the hospital for care to their loved ones. 

  • The hospital must have >75% of RNs recommending the hospital for care. 

• For the Nurses' Choice Highest Quality Award:

  • The hospital must meet the minimum number of interviews for the hospital bed size (see above). 

  • The hospital must have the highest percentage of RNs care quality questions answered with a positive or agree answer. 

  • The hospital must have >75% of care quality questions answered with a positive or agree answer. 

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Requiring hospitals to pay to promote an award is against CareLuminate's mission. We enthusiastically encourage hospitals, regardless of whether they have subscribed to the research, to promote their recognition. Promoting their recognition is an important part of educating the community. 

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Q: Is CareLuminate a pay-to-play organization?

A: We are not a pay to play organization. We have carefully built our model to ensure that we can report on all hospitals whether they participate, pay or ignore these efforts. Anything a hospital pays is transparently reported and will not influence the results of our report. 

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We report on which hospitals have supported this research by acknowledging them as 'Transparency Sponsors'. There will be many hospitals that do not subscribe to CareLuminate findings but are awarded, by their nurses, the "CareLuminate Nurse Choice Award."

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Q: Can hospitals see which nurses have responded to a survey?

A: All data, insights and reporting shared with a hospital will ensure that the identity of nurse respondents is not revealed. Everything we report is built on trust with nurses so that they can speak openly and honestly about their opinions of the current hospital care without fear of consequence.

Some comments shared by nurses are edited to ensure that the nurse's identity is not revealed. 

 

Q: What if nurses report something that is not true?

A: CareLuminate does not investigate any claims made by nurses. We work to report absolutely honestly the feedback shared by nurses and cite our research as being nurse generated. We acknowledge that just as will happen in any primary research source, nurse feedback could at times be imperfect or inaccurate. Except for in extreme situations, CareLuminate simply reports on what nurses have said and does not investigate comments or ratings shared by nurses. 

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Q: What validations does CareLuminate conduct on this research?

A: CareLuminate validates the names and license of all nurses that participate. We do this to ensure that all respondents are nurses and should be eligible to respond to these questions. 

CareLuminate also tracks the source of all survey data and will share openly with all hospitals the differences in recommendation score for surveys sourced in difference places (online, hospital recommendation, solicitation, etc.). Monitoring these differences in sampling can ensure that any hospital's sample is not significantly biased. 

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Q: Does CareLuminate encourage nurses to break their NDAs?

A: CareLuminate encourages nurses to be educated about their non-disclosure agreements and ensure that any feedback shared does not break their agreement with their employer. Nurses are allowed to skip any questions they feel they cannot answer. Every nurse in every interview is encouraged to be aware of their NDA and not answer any questions that they feel might violate their NDA. 

CareLuminate asks nurses to share their opinions with their community about the quality of care at the hospital they have experience with. We know that the community sees nurses as the most educated healthcare consumers in the community, and as such, they want to know where nurses choose to go for their healthcare. 

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Q: What if CareLuminate makes a mistake?

A: CareLuminate is a company of people trying to honestly report the nurse voice to improve care. As humans, we will make mistakes. We are committed to recognizing mistakes, quickly fixing them, and working to inform all parties who have already read our research about the mistake that was made. We appreciate the patience of customers and clients when we make a mistake, but strive to have absolute competence in everything we do. 

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Q: Why should a hospital purchase a CareLuminate regional report?

A: CareLuminate regional reports provide three primary sources of value to hospitals that purchase them:

1. Hospitals are able to learn the candid feedback from their nurses. Because CareLuminate surveys nurses confidentially, many hospitals will collect insights they did not hear from nurses who did not feel the latitude to be candid. These insights can be used to improve care.  

2. Hospitals will be able to compare the responses of their nurses to feedback from regional and eventually national benchmarks. These insights will provide powerful insights into care and possible improvements. 

3. Hospitals that do subscribe to the CareLuminate report before it publishes will be recognized for being a 'Transparency Sponsor'. Your subscription helps support CareLuminate research and ensures that similar transparency is provided to your community for years to come. 

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Q: How long until our regional report is published?

A: Reports typically take 3-8 months to publish. Your CareLuminate contact will have an expected publish date. Because this research relies on contacting sufficient nurses, occasionally delays will occur that make CareLuminate research later than expected.

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Q: Will this report be repeated?

A: Once CareLuminate starts to measure the nurse voice in a community, we plan to repeat those reports each year to ensure our data is up-to-date and accurate. 

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Q: Does CareLuminate claim a completely random and representative sample?

A: Non-response bias is very difficult for any survey to remove and nearly impossible for very targeted surveys such as those conducted by CareLuminate. While we can not claim a truly representative sample, we do work diligently to ensure that our sample is consistent in sourcing across all hospitals.

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Q: What types of nurses can participate in a CareLuminate survey? Can other medical professionals participate?

A: CareLuminate currently only interviews RNs. 

In time other medical professionals will likely be included to some degree in CareLuminate research. Today we are focusing on collecting the impactful and insightful nurse voice. 

We do not include nurse assistants or aids in our data as they may in some cases lack the education for a complete view of the complexities of healthcare.  

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Q: Can hospitals review a report before it is published?

A: CareLuminate will send hospitals a copy of the summary version of the report one week before it is published for their review. CareLuminate will welcome feedback from hospitals but will only make changes that are supported by the data. 

This review process is important for ensuring that mistakes are caught, and we appreciate hospitals that engage in this process with strong intellectual honesty. 

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Q: What additional services can CareLuminate provide our hospital?

A: Beyond the regional reports, CareLuminate offers advisory services that include on-site engagement with your team by a CareLuminate research expert. These advisory sessions can be important to ensure that the researched findings are understood deeply by your hospital's leadership, management and staff. CareLuminate always strives to ensure these sessions are candid and positive, helping team members focus on what they can do to improve the care in your organization. 

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Q: Can our hospital use CareLuminate reports in our marketing?

A: Hospitals that win the Nurses' Choice Award can use that award for marketing regardless of whether they have subscribed to the report. 

Hospitals that subscribe to CareLuminate report can use them for marketing within the bounds of the CareLuminate data use policy.