Does Patient Satisfaction Drive Volumes in Outpatient Magnetic Resonance Imaging?

Area of Science:

• Radiology
• Health Services Research
• Microeconomics

Background:

• Patient satisfaction is a key indicator of healthcare quality.
• Understanding the relationship between patient satisfaction and service volume is crucial for healthcare management.
• Outpatient magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a high-volume, high-cost service where patient experience may influence utilization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the hypothesis that patient volume trends in outpatient MRI reflect patient satisfaction trends.
• To quantify the potential microeconomic impact of patient satisfaction in radiology.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of 39,595 outpatient MRI visits over one year.
• Categorization of MRI sites into "decreasing," "stable," or "increasing" volume groups based on quarterly volume changes (≥5% threshold).
• Calculation of satisfaction score changes using Press Ganey surveys and statistical analysis (Mood's median tests) to compare satisfaction improvements across volume groups.

Main Results:

• A statistically significant association was found between MRI volume trends and changes in patient satisfaction scores across all five surveyed domains.
• Facilities with increasing volume trends showed generally higher median satisfaction score improvements compared to stable or decreasing volume sites.
• No evidence was found to support the converse hypothesis that higher patient volume adversely affects satisfaction.

Conclusions:

• Patient satisfaction appears to be a driver of patient volume in outpatient MRI settings.
• The findings suggest that patient experiences and perceptions of quality significantly influence the selection of imaging sites.
• This interrelationship highlights the importance of prioritizing patient satisfaction for optimizing MRI service utilization and economic impact.