Patient satisfaction: The insight value of most surveys is only low, but can be optimised

What it’s all about

If patient surveys are carried out methodically and correctly, they have the effect of „small practice analyses and provide important information not only for the further improvement of patient care, but also for strategic business development. However, 2/3 of the surveys conducted in GP and specialist practices deliver incorrect results due to inappropriate survey concepts, e.g. school grade scaling, which do not allow reliable conclusions to be drawn.

Five indicators make surveys professional analyses

A total of five indicators are needed to realistically determine patient satisfaction and to obtain concrete indications for possible / necessary improvements / changes:

• the overall satisfaction score, which represents a global description of the state of practice performance from the patient’s point of view,
• the percentage of very satisfied patients
• the best practice quality of care (Patient Care Quality Score, PCQS) for the core performance characteristics of the work and as an aggregate variable,
• the Reference Group Score (RGS) for the core performance characteristics of the practice
• the willingness to recommend, determined with the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which describes the patients‘ concrete intention to act, resulting from their satisfaction.

All data can be collected with a specially developed questionnaire that is very easy for patients to complete in just three minutes. The complete system, including data evaluation and results report, is available as Valetudo Check-up© „Patient Satisfaction Medical Practice“.