What do doctors deserve to know?
If you answered “everything,” I would suggest otherwise, when it comes to sharing patient satisfaction results.
Doctors are extremely busy people. Even though they are very good at absorbing and making sense out of lots of data, drowning them in survey numbers is not a good strategy. So what’s the alternative? I would suggest organizing the information, presenting it visually, and limiting the results to communicate key information.
Doctors deserve to see:
The Sample Size—Tell how many patients actually rated them, in the current period, and in any other periods that you show. When sample sizes get very small, less than 40 or 50 per period, doctors have a legitimate right to question the results. The margin of error for that period’s results is extremely large, so the results are suspect. Only as the data accumulates over time, and the sample size grows accordingly, do you have results that both you and your physicians should trust.
Scores for each of the Doctor Communication questions—There are three doctor communication questions on the HCAHPS survey. A doctor may score well on the questions about treating a patient with respect and listening, but not score well on how he or she explains things. This highlights a specific area of communication that the doctor needs to improve on.
Relevant Comparison Scores—Showing physicians their scores in relation to other doctor’s scores gives them a reliable reference point for their own performance. If an individual doctor’s score is a 70 and all the other doctors in a practice are scoring 85 and above, the doctor with the 70 can then see that he or she has some things to work on.
Scores for the other major domains—If a doctor sees that pain management scores are trending lower, that reveals an area of improvement for the entire clinical team. Giving physicians the opportunity to see scores for the other domains allows for a more comprehensive picture of the patient experience being provided.
Actual Patient Comments, sorted by sentiment—Numbers only mean so much and people’s real thoughts and emotions are often more telling than graphs and percentages. For example, if a patient says that their doctor was “extremely rude and didn’t listen to a thing I said,” the patient’s voice comes through. This is powerful.
To learn more about our approach to patient experience surveying, click here.
