Geographically Localized Medicine House-Staff Teams and Patient Satisfaction.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Patient Experience
• Inpatient Care

Background:

• Geographically localized care teams may improve communication and care coordination.
• The impact of localized teams on patient experience remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare patient experience scores for residents on home clinical units versus those off-unit over 10 years.

Main Methods:

• Included 3012 internal medicine inpatients across 4 chief resident services.
• Compared patients on home units (exposure) with those off-unit (control).
• Utilized top-box scores from HCAHPS and Press Ganey surveys for physician communication, nursing communication, pain, and discharge planning.

Main Results:

• No significant differences in patient experience scores between localized and non-localized teams.
• Localized teams did not improve satisfaction with physician communication, nursing communication, pain management, or discharge planning.
• No improvements were observed even when over 75% of patients were on home units with multidisciplinary rounds.

Conclusions:

• Geographically localized care teams do not inherently enhance patient experience.
• Factors like physician communication skills and direct care time may be more influential.
• Further research is needed to identify key organizational, team, and individual factors affecting patient experience.