Satisfaction Surveys

Obtaining information on how patients rate a healthcare facility and its providers and how satisfied they are with the care they receive has become a major focus of healthcare organizations. Although healthcare providers have been collecting such information for decades, in the past, it was viewed as a routine function with little practical utility. Patients were plentiful, and a consumerist approach was not in vogue. Patient satisfaction was not seriously considered as a method to improve quality and reduce costs.

Today, healthcare organizations are increasingly aware of the importance of keeping their patients satisfied as a way of preventing their shifting to other providers for their healthcare needs. As revenues become scarcer and competition more acute, many healthcare organizations are using patient satisfaction data to improve their services, increase revenue, and attain a superior market position.

Many healthcare providers view the delivery of care differently from their patients. They often view care as “fragmented,” or being provided in “silos.” Patients, on the other hand, tend to evaluate their total care experience as an integrated whole. Thus, the way patients view and evaluate their experiences may be completely different from the isolated view of providers and healthcare organizations. The implication, of course, is that low satisfaction levels for one or two aspects of care may result in significantly lower subjective assessments of the quality of the entire organization. And one or two positive experiences, on the other hand, may not be generalized to the whole experience.