An employee survey asks for an employee number. For anyone promised confidentiality, that is a peculiar opening move. In 2013, Phoebe Putney Health System anticipated the objection. Its questionnaire, administered by Avatar HR Solutions, came with an explanation: the number routed answers to the right department and prevented duplicate submissions. Individual responses would not be sent back to the employer.
The detail is small, almost bureaucratic. It also gets to the heart of Avatar Solutions. Before a hospital could learn anything useful, someone had to believe it was safe to tell the truth. Then someone else had to do something with the answer.
- Avatar measured patient experience alongside employee and physician engagement.
- Its offer combined surveys, benchmarks, reporting software and consulting.
- A simpler pricing tier arrived in 2014; Press Ganey bought the business in 2016.
The same FAQ gave employees a reason to bother. Earlier feedback, Phoebe said, had led to executive rounding and employee forums. Department plans had produced schedule changes, additional educational opportunities and additional staff for difficult workloads. This is a more persuasive invitation than a cheerful reminder to complete the form. It lets employees judge whether the organization has a history of responding before they decide what to disclose.
Two accounts of the same hospital
A patient can describe whether an explanation made sense. An employee can describe the working environment in which that explanation was delivered. These accounts are related, but they answer different questions. Avatar’s proposition was to give managers access to both.
The business brought together two research traditions. Riverside invested in Avatar International in September 2011. That December, Avatar acquired HR Solutions International, which specialized in employee and physician engagement. The combined offering became known as Avatar Solutions.
This was a specific corner of management consulting: research about how care was experienced, paired with help interpreting the results. Hospitals, physician groups and home health agencies needed more than a blank questionnaire. They needed administration, credible comparisons and a way to decide where to intervene.
Avatar’s difference lay in that combination and in patient questionnaires tailored to the care each person received. A company announcement in 2013 reported more than 500 hospital customers and 13,000 clinicians nationwide. Its employee research also reached outside medicine: Moraine Valley Community College used Avatar HR Solutions.
The number needs a neighbour
Avatar administered CAHPS surveys, the standardized healthcare experience questionnaires, alongside customized research. It also offered onboarding, exit and safety-culture surveys. In February 2014, the American Hospital Association expanded its endorsement to the full healthcare survey suite. That gave the combined proposition an industry credential.
The interpretation mattered as much as the collection. A score becomes useful when its comparison group makes sense. An AHRQ research summary documented Avatar’s work with clinician-and-group survey data from 2012 and 2013, producing score distributions that could be restricted by specialty, region and ownership.
Imagine a manager looking at an apparently disappointing result. Comparing that clinic with a relevant specialty group might change the question the manager asks next. The practical advantage is a better starting point for investigation. A percentile still cannot explain, by itself, why patients had that experience.
ImprovingCare supplied the software layer. By late 2014, Avatar described push reporting, demographic filters and detailed benchmarks in its online reporting and action planning tool. The business model joined survey services, software access and consulting in an organizational purchase. The buyer was paying for the work surrounding the questionnaire.
The choices began before the first answer arrived. Avatar described advising clients on survey questions, sampling ratios and whether to use mail, telephone, online collection or a hybrid. These are consequential design decisions, even when they look like administration. The customer was buying a research process as well as a report. For a small team, that support could be the reason to hire a specialist rather than build the whole exercise internally.
Then the elaborate answer met the budget
Customization was central to Avatar’s pitch. In November 2014, the company acknowledged a commercial limit: its advanced approach did not suit every client. Some organizations wanted a streamlined survey, a regulatory minimum or a smaller bill.
“Not every client wants the fully customizable solution”
Mike Sinoway, Avatar CEO · November 2014
Avatar added a value-priced, automated option. Sinoway said it could deliver the simpler approach at about half the cost of other survey firms. That was the company’s comparison, rather than an independently audited saving.
The revealing part was the change in scope. Avatar had spent years selling specificity, then made room for buyers who wanted less of it. For another services business, the move is worth studying: separate the customer who wants deeper investigation from the customer who needs a manageable first step. Give each a product they can actually use.
What happened after “submit”
Navicent Health supplies a concrete example of the next stage. It began an annual employee survey with Avatar in 2013. In a 2015 account, the health system described subsequent changes including town halls, access to executives, tuition assistance, leadership development and adjustments to pay and benefits.
It reported that 80% of employees participated in the 2015 survey. Those are the hospital’s reported actions and participation figure; they do not establish that Avatar alone caused improvement. They do show what a useful response to feedback can look like: decisions employees can recognize in their working lives.
Earlier, Aspen Valley Hospital’s 2007 annual report described laboratory and mammography teams receiving Avatar innovation awards after listening to patients and changing their service. It identified Michael Everett as Avatar’s founder and CEO. Across these customer accounts, the recurring subject is the work that follows measurement.
The listening business gets a new owner
On May 2, 2016, Press Ganey acquired Avatar International Holding Company and its operating subsidiary from Riverside funds. The SEC filing records approximately $17.1 million in cash consideration, subject to adjustments. Avatar’s surviving corporate profile now points visitors toward Press Ganey.
For a manager, the transferable idea is quite practical. Ask the people receiving a service and the people delivering it. Explain how their answers will be handled. Choose a relevant comparison. Commit to an action people can see.
The approach depends on those commitments. If employees distrust the process, or leaders commission a survey without the capacity to respond, another set of scores offers little relief. Avatar’s history leaves a useful question for the next questionnaire: who has agreed to act when the answers arrive?