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The February 7, 2007 edition of the Wall Street Journal described a local hospital's efforts in regards to patient satisfaction. Briefly, the article stated that in 2004 the hospital had done a patient survey and had found that patients thought the staff offered poor service and that patients thought they were ill-informed about decisions and home care. The hospital's response to this survey created some very positive results. The hospital formed a family and patient advisory council. Based upon the advice of the council several important changes were made. Visiting hours were eliminated. Staff worked with patients and staff to decide who would make medical decisions. Waiting times were shortened. Staff called home after patient discharge to make sure that instructions were clear and being followed. These improvements along with others led from a patient ranking in the lower third nationally to the 64th percentile. More improvements are surely coming and along with those a higher ranking.

Why should a hospital be concerned with this type of information and patient satisfaction? One is that the healthcare market is becoming more competitive. Medicare will be posting results of mandatory patient surveys of hospitals on its website. There are three major hospitals in the metro area in which I live (Grand Rapids) and if media advertising campaigns are any indication, the competition is becoming very lively. Word of mouth is an important part of advertising. Hence, patient satisfaction is extremely important. Unfortunately, many hospitals have yet to realize the importance of patient satisfaction, in spite of the fact that it was one of the major recommendations in the National Institute of Health's report, Crossing the Quality Chasm.

Another return in paying attention to patient satisfaction is the improved health of the patient. By knowing who is empowered to make medical decisions, time is being saved in making important medical decisions. By following up on instructions at home, costly errors in terms of money and health are being prevented and patients are healing much faster, driving down the rate for readmissions due to complications after discharge.

Much of the drive to listen to patients is borrowed from a long tradition of the best manufacturers of everyday products and providers of service to customers. I ran across a remarkable example of this not long ago with Toyota Corporation, a company which sets world standards in customer satisfaction and improved sales. I test drove a Toyota Matrix and found the driver's seat to be the same height as my new Corolla. I was surprised. The salesman said that Toyota had surveyed its customers and found that the customers preferred driver's side seats to be a certain height. This accommodated older drivers, who are an important segment of Toyota's clients. Thus, Toyota standardized this height in all of its autos some time ago. It is one of the reasons its sales worldwide is increasing.

Competition is increasing not only in hospital settings but also in many other areas of healthcare. In a February 6, 2007 article in the Wall Street Journal competition in laser eye corrective surgery was discussed. Nationally, competition in this field is becoming intense and so it is in my local area. Prices for procedures are coming down due to this. The growing use of Health Savings Accounts (HSA's) has also led to increased comparison of quality and cost in this procedure. When I was discussing this article recently with the manager of such a facility he pointed out that it is still difficult to compare quality of service. He said word of mouth is very important. Hence, knowing what your patients think is very important. Surveys are an excellent way to find out.

Competition is also increasing in the primary care setting. It is increasingly important to find out what patients think. A January 1999 article in Family Practice Management pointed this out and gave excellent advice on how to do so. This article can be found on the American Academy of Family Physician's website. Two useful tips in the article are how to insure that you get a random sample for best survey results and what size of response is necessary to get good results. It also points out an access to a standardized survey for the primary care physician that they have developed. While such surveys are good, I think that a survey developed specifically for a particular healthcare setting will return more valuable results.

Surveys are very important in today's competitive healthcare climate. Simple surveys and standardized ones can provide much useful information, but I suggest that if you want the best information, that you get the help of someone who specializes in survey design, information collection and survey analysis. I am sure that if you take this step that you will find the investment well worth it.

Donald Bryant helps healthcare providers meet their challenges and writes "Making Good Healthcare Better" a free monthly ezine for healthcare providers who want to dramatically improve patient health, improve the bottom line, and make work more rewarding, guaranteed. Go now to http://www.bryantsstatisticalconsulting.com to get a free article with tips you can use to start making improvements immediately and to learn more about Lean Healthcare

posted by kalco16945  # 3:25 PM 0 comments