REPOST: Patient satisfaction’s impact on physician livelihood

This American Medical News article discusses patient satisfaction and its effects on doctors' livelihood as well as their own sense of satisfaction, professionally speaking.

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Leaving a patient satisfied can be critical to a physician’s job evaluation and pay. But what does patient satisfaction mean, and how can a doctor make sure it happens even as he or she makes treatment decisions that might not make a patient happy?

American Medical News has reported on what makes a patient satisfied enough to rate a physician highly — and how to balance giving the best care with what a patient might expect or demand. Patient satisfaction: When a doctor’s judgment risks a poor rating

Some doctors see an ethical conundrum in using patient satisfaction as a factor in rating their effectiveness as physicians — and as a factor in their pay. The problem comes when patients, unhappy that they’ve been denied a treatment they don’t need, take their anger out on physicians when assessing their services.

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Satisfaction scores seen as crucial to physician success

Price is the primary factor for consumers when they choose a product — except in health care, where personal experience reigns supreme. For that reason, consultants are advising physicians to win over patients with convenient, personalized and warm service. They recommend that physicians deliver the best, most appropriate care while giving each patient a satisfying experience.

Shift to medical home may not increase patient satisfaction

Researchers hypothesized that practices with more medical-home elements would have happier patients. But the data they gathered showed that didn’t always happen. The problem, they theorize, is that things that the make the office run more efficiently, and can help improve care, can be seen by patients as impersonal and factory-like.

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Physician rating website reveals formula for good reviews

What makes a patient happy? It’s not the physician’s expertise, or the perceived quality of care. It’s a short time in the waiting room and a longer time in the exam room. That’s the formula for patient satisfaction one organization came up with after it read 36,000 online reviews of physicians.

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Clinical communication and patient safety

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Miscommunication leads to error; the lack thereof often breeds tragic consequences. In clinical settings where lives are at stake, the breakdown in effective communication sometimes becomes the main culprit of infective incompetence and ineffectual processes. In the science of patient safety and healthcare risk management, communication has always been a key factor in cohesive, effective, and efficient healthcare delivery.

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Stressing the importance of effective communication in healthcare processes, risk managers encourage physicians, nurses, and other healthcare staff to introduce and implement proper mechanisms and strategies that make communication one of the key components of improved healthcare delivery system. While traditional systems such as a norm for sense of hierarchy prevent open communication among staff at different rungs in the system, healthcare leaders involved in any clinical setting must be proactive in keeping a clear and effective flow of information within processes and procedures. Good communication means the clinicians and staff work as one body and mind when it comes to patient safety. There should be no room for errors, even from the simple acts of gathering patient information and reviewing medical data.

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Effective communication has long been the focal focus of patient safety and risk management. To prevent incidences of clinical errors and malpractice, miscommunication among healthcare professionals must never occupy the center stage.

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