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Wednesday, February 17, 2016 6:00 PM

Does An Emphasis on Patient Satisfaction Do More Harm, or Good?

Written by Mark H. Johnson, MHA, RN-BC, CPHIMS, FHIMSS, Vice President, Sales and Marketing - iatricSystems

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Providers are beginning to see a major reimbursement shift with a greater focus on quality of care. Simultaneously, there has been an emphasis placed on patient satisfaction, with more than 30% Medicare reimbursement dollars determined by satisfaction scores.

According to a recent article in The Atlantic, this attempt to measure patient satisfaction can lead to a misguided focus on the measurement in satisfaction, and results in an emphasis that takes away from the overall quality of patient care. The article states it simply: "Patients can be very satisfied and be dead an hour later."

To take it one step further, the article continues on to explain this growing concern: “The concept of 'patient experience' has mischaracterized patients as customers and nurses as automatons.”

So, do you share the concern that a hyper-focus on patient satisfaction takes away from efforts to improve quality? Does the drive towards a perfect survey lead to employees coming across as scripted and impersonal during care? Just how satisfied do our patients need to be, to find that perfect balance between quality and customer satisfaction?