ABSTRACT
For healthcare organizations, the rewards of assessing patient, employee, and physician satisfaction can include not only increased utilization and reduced employee turnover, but also: *An enhanced reputation in the community; *Increased patient loyalty; *Reduced malpractice claims; *Greater efficiency.
Subject(s)
Economics, Hospital , Efficiency, Organizational/economics , Patient Satisfaction/economics , Community-Institutional Relations/economics , Economic Competition , Humans , MalpracticeABSTRACT
A national cross-sectional study correlates the satisfaction ratings of heart failure patients (diagnosis related group 127) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' process-based quality measures for heart failure treatment for 32 hospitals during the first and second quarters of 2004. Two of the four measures of clinical quality showed statistically significant, moderately strong, positive correlations with a global measure of satisfaction and with, respectively, 5 and 7 subscales of the 10 subscales of satisfaction under examination (Pearson's r ranged between .40 and .67, 2-tailed; p < .05). Findings demonstrate that quality need not be a zero-sum issue, with clinical quality and service quality competing for resources and attention.
