Summary of the 2020 AHRQ research meeting on 'advancing methods of implementing and evaluating patient experience improvement using consumer assessment of healthcare providers and systems (CAHPS®) surveys'.

Background: The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality held a research meeting on using Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) data for quality improvement (QI) and evaluating such efforts.

Topics Covered.: Meeting addressed: 1)What has been learned about organizational factors/environment needed to improve patient experience? 2)How have organizations used data to improve patient experience? 3)What can evaluations using CAHPS data teach us about implementing successful programs to improve patient experience?

Key Themes: Providers and stakeholders need to be engaged early and often, standardize QI processes, complement CAHPS data with other data, and compile dashboards of CAHPS scores to identify and track improvement. Rigorous study designs are valuable, but much can be learned and accomplished through practical organization-level studies.