What Determines the Surgical Patient Experience? Exploring the Patient, Clinical Staff, and Administration...

Hospitals are increasingly concerned with enhancing surgical patient experience given that Medicare reimbursements are now tied in part to patient satisfaction. Surgical patients' experience may be influenced by several factors (e.g., integration of care, technical aspects of care), which are ranked differently in importance by clinicians and patients. Strategies designed to improve patient experience can be informed by our research, which examines the determinants of the surgical patient experience from the perspective of multiple healthcare team members. We conducted 12 focus groups with surgical patients, family members, physicians, nurses, and hospital administrators at one acute care, for-profit hospital in a western state and analyzed the content for determinants of the overall surgical patient experience. Specifically, we analyzed the content of the conversations to determine how frequently participants discussed the determinants of the surgical patient experience and how positive, negative, or neutral the comments were. The study's findings suggest that surgical patients and members of the healthcare team have similar views regarding the most important factors in the patient experience-namely, interdisciplinary relationships, technical infrastructure, and staffing. The study results will be used to improve care in this facility and can inform the development of initiatives aimed at improving the surgical patient experience elsewhere. Our study could serve as a model for how other facilities can analyze the surgical patient experience from the perspectives of different stakeholders and improve their performance on the basis of data directly relevant to their organization.