Skip to contents
In This Issue:
Patient satisfaction throughout ambulatory practices of Brigham and Women’s/Faulkner Hospitals has increased each quarter since the hospital began using Press Ganey to measure satisfaction in Ambulatory Services in 2007. Some 4,474 patients who visited one of more than 70 practices between April and June gave BW/F a mean survey score of 90.3, pushing BW/F Ambulatory Services into the 78th percentile when compared to University Health Consortium (UHC) facilities that use Press Ganey.
“When we had one year of data as our baseline, we set a two-year goal to reach the 75th percentile compared to UHC facilities, and we accomplished that goal in one year,” said Sharon Vitti, vice president of Ambulatory and Women’s Health Clinical Services. “This is reflective of the hard work and dedication of hundreds of staff across Ambulatory Services to improve patient experiences while delivering the top quality care patients expect at the Brigham.”
Ambulatory Services began surveying patients to understand how the patient’s visit was by site and to enable practice leadership to identify areas for improvement. The surveys are distributed in both English and Spanish, and BW/F began surveying patients at various radiology and procedure areas starting this spring.
Using the baseline data as a catalyst, the Ambulatory Council launched the PATIENT FIRST campaign and initiatives focused on service excellence improvements across all ambulatory sites. Concurrent to this enterprise approach, many practice teams undertook local improvement initiatives specifically addressing their patient feedback. “Collectively, we were able to improve our patients’ experience across our ambulatory sites in 2009,” Vitti said.
On the most recent quarterly survey, patients gave practices high marks on the overall assessment section of the survey, which asks them to rate the cheerfulness and friendliness of the practice, care received and the likelihood of recommending this practice to friends and family. The overall assessment score for April through June was 92.5, and when asked about recommending their practice to friends and family, patients gave BW/F a 93.4.
In addition to overall assessment, ambulatory patients are asked to rate their BW/F experience in five other categories: access to care, during the visit, nurse and assistant, care provider and personal issues. The combined mean scores for primary care and specialty practices for each category have increased almost across the board since the surveys were first sent to ambulatory patients.
Patients gave BW/F practices high marks when asked to rank their care providers’ use of clear language, explanations of problems and conditions and efforts to include them in decisions.