Soliciting patient complaints to improve performance

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Patient Experience
• Quality Improvement

Background:

• A 2000 study aimed to identify service quality issues in a major teaching hospital.
• The research also evaluated a pre-discharge program for complaint resolution's impact on patient satisfaction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe service quality problems within a tertiary care teaching hospital.
• To assess the effectiveness of a pre-discharge active complaint surveillance program on patient satisfaction.

Main Methods:

• A pre-post intervention study with temporal controls was conducted.
• 1,023 patients from a general medical unit were interviewed by a patient advocate regarding service quality.
• Patient satisfaction was measured via telephone interviews 7-10 days post-discharge.

Main Results:

• The advocate received 695 service quality complaints, with half related to local unit care (e.g., delayed responses).
• Common complaints included food, admission/discharge delays, and communication issues.
• The hospital's formal system received only 12 complaints; patient satisfaction scores remained unchanged.

Conclusions:

• Active surveillance via pre-discharge interviews effectively identified numerous local and systemwide service quality problems.
• Addressing these identified issues is crucial for enhancing patient care quality.
• The intervention, however, did not lead to a measurable improvement in patient satisfaction scores.