Consumer In Home Provider Satisfaction Survey example essay topic

Title: The consumer in-home provider satisfaction survey. Problem Statement: The practicum agency that I work at is the Allegheny County Area Agency on Aging which is located in downtown Pittsburgh. The purpose of my agency is to help senior citizens over the age of 60, who need services. I work in the PDA waiver (Pennsylvania Department of Aging) section that is made up of eight caseworkers, two typists, and one supervisor. My department's mission is to provide current information of services and programs available to senior citizens and their families. The overall mission of the agency is to plan, organize, coordinate, convene, programs and funds where possible to the elderly of Allegheny County.

The goal of my agency is to satisfy the consumer therefore, my survey will help determine how satisfied consumers are with the services they receive through the PDA Waiver program. PDA Waiver offers home and community based services to low-income consumers as an alternative to nursing home care. The financial eligibility requirements are $2,000 in resources and less than $1,593 in monthly income. The functional eligibility requirement is that consumers must be age 60 or older and nursing home eligible. There are fourteen different services that the PDA Waiver program offers to consumers. The services are typical of those provided in nursing homes.

I will be examining how satisfied the PDA Waiver consumers are with their in-home providers. In-home providers go into the home and assist consumers with actives of daily living (ADL) which include bathing, grooming, eating, transferring, and toileting. In-home providers also assist with instrumental activities of daily living (I ADL) such as preparing meals, laundry, shopping, transportation, and money management. I will be looking at worker timeliness, agency reliability and worker time sheet compliance. After looking at those three elements, I will compare the consumer comfort level and overall satisfaction with surveys that were conducted in the past.

The results from my survey will allow my agency to work with the in-home providers that had a low score, so that the consumers are satisfied with their services. Participants: There are approximately 350 PDA Waiver consumers that receive services through my agency. I am going to do a random sample of the consumers that have been receiving services for more than one month. I will randomly choose 75 names from the list of PDA Waiver consumers that have been receiving services for at least one month. My survey is descriptive because I am only studying one group of participants. I will not be comparing in-home provider agency's with each other or past results with my survey.

I thought it would be hard to compare past results to my results because consumers are chosen randomly, not all in-home provider agency's are given an equal opportunity of being in the survey. The survey will be confidential and participants will be assigned a number to their survey sheet. I will need to know the names of the participants so I can make sure I am speaking with the right person. After introducing myself to the consumer, I will explain the purpose of the survey and assure them that their answers will not affect their services (see Appendix II). The survey will take approximately five to seven minutes to complete. I will call the consumers up to three times until I talk to the consumer / caregiver.

If I do not get a hold the consumer / caregiver I will include them in the total amount survey but I will not count them as respondents. The Study Design: I will get a list of current PDA Waiver consumers and only those who have received services before October 1, 2001 will be eligible to participate in the survey. I thought that consumers who were not receiving services for at least one month would not be able to decide if they are satisfied with their in-home providers. I will start calling the participants during the first week in November and I will finish calling the consumers the third week in December. Measurements: I will be conducting a telephone survey to find out how satisfied PDA Waiver consumers are with their services. I will be asking a total of 14 short, closed-ended questions using the Licker t scale.

The survey was created by the PDA Waiver planning committee and will be used for future surveys. The exact questions that will be asked can be found on the instrument located on Appendix I. I will not measure consumer demographics during the survey. I will be able to have access to the consumer's folders if I need to find out any information regarding the participants. My agency felt that demographic information was not important to the survey. I will need to know the consumers and or caregivers first and last name so I can make sure I am speaking with the right person.

Consumer surveys will be considered if all of the questions are answered. I will discard any surveys that are not complete and document why they were not completed. I will even discard the survey if all but one question is not answered. I thought that because my survey was only 14 questions, it was crucial to answer all of the questions to get the most accurate answers. The scores can range from 38 being very satisfied to 0 being not at all satisfied. During the first part of my results, I will add up the numbers that represented the consumer's answers to determine if they were satisfied with their in-home provider.

I will then separate the questions into five categories. The categories will be broken down into the provider timeliness (questions 1 and 2), agency / worker reliability (questions 3, 4, and 5), time sheet compliance (questions 7 and 8), relational adequacy (questions 10, 11, and 12), and overall satisfaction (questions 6, 9, 13, and 14). The questions about provider timeliness will determine if the worker shows up on time and if they are there on the correct days. Questions dealing with agency / worker reliability ask if the worker is going to call if they are going to be late, or if there has been a time when no worker has shown up at all. Timesheet compliance questions refer to the time sheets the worker signs each time they go to see a consumer. Questions about relational adequacy help to identify the relationship between the worker and consumer.

Overall satisfaction questions help determine if the consumer is pleased with the PDA Waiver program and if they would recommend it to others. Analysis Plan: I will find the mean, range, and standard deviation from the 14 questions first before I separate the questions into five categories. I will conclude that a consumer is satisfied if they score at least 24 of the possible 38 points. I will determine that a consumer is not satisfied if they have a total of 23 or below out of the possible 38 points. Once I have separate the questions into five categories, I will calculate the mean level of satisfaction for each of the five categories. The range differs between the different categories.

The range for provider timeliness (questions 1 and 2) is 6 being the highest possible score and 0 being the lowest score. The range for agency / worker reliability (questions 3, 4, and 5) is 8 being the highest possible score and 0 being the lowest score. The range for time sheet compliance (questions 7 and 8) is 6 being the highest possible score and 0 being the lowest score. The range for relational adequacy (questions 10, 11, and 12) is 8 being the highest possible score and 0 being the lowest score.

The range for overall satisfaction (questions 6, 9, 13, and 14) is 10 being the highest possible score and 0 being the lowest score. Anticipated Results and Interpretations: I anticipate that at least 85% of the consumers will be satisfied with their in-home provider. I came up with this percent because all of the consumers receiving PDA Waiver services are nursing home clinically eligible but would prefer to remain at home. It is a proven fact that once a person is admitted into a nursing home their health, both physically and mentally decreases. When a senior citizen is placed in a nursing home, patients may feel that they have lost all control of their lives, experience depression, and lose contact with their families. My research project is important to my agency because by meeting the expectations of the consumers, this allows us to continue providing quality services to the elderly living in Allegheny County.

If the results are negative and consistent throughout the survey, my supervisor will review the in-home provider agencies and work on fixing the problems. Also, I will break down the survey by provider agencies and this will allow my supervisor to target the in- home provider agencies that the consumers are not happy with.