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The patient satisfaction chasm: the gap between hospital management and frontline clinicians

Rozenblum R, Lisby M, Hockey PM, Levtzion-Korach O, Salzberg CA, Efrati N, Lipsitz S, Bates DW

BMJ quality & safety, 2013

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Achieving high levels of patient satisfaction requires hospital management to be proactive in patient-centred care improvement initiatives and to engage frontline clinicians in this process.

METHOD: We developed a survey to assess the attitudes of clinicians towards hospital management activities with respect to improving patient satisfaction and surveyed clinicians in four academic hospitals located in Denmark, Israel, the UK and the USA.

RESULTS: We collected 1004 questionnaires (79.9% response rate) from four hospitals in four countries on three continents. Overall, 90.4% of clinicians believed that improving patient satisfaction during hospitalisation was achievable, but only 9.2% of clinicians thought their department had a structured plan to do so, with significant differences between the countries (p<0.0001). Among responders, only 38% remembered targeted actions to improve patient satisfaction and just 34% stated having received feedback from hospital management regarding patient satisfaction status in their department during the past year. In multivariate analyses, clinicians who received feedback from hospital management and remembered targeted actions to improve patient satisfaction were more likely to state that their department had a structured plan to improve patient satisfaction.

CONCLUSIONS: This portrait of clinicians' attitudes highlights a chasm between hospital management and frontline clinicians with respect to improving patient satisfaction.…

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Evidence Hub reads this as a cross-sectional, done in people. Its evidence level is 4 of 5 (Low · observational). Observational designs can show an association but not prove cause.

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