Caring staff make happy patients
Caring staff make happy patients
Attitude, interactive skills, and caring behavior ranked highest in importance in the largest patient satisfaction survey ever taken, according to Press, Ganey Associates, a South Bend, IN, health care research firm.
The analysis of more than one million patient surveys from 545 hospital in 44 states covered the period December 1995 to November 1996. It looked at such aspects of hospital care as admission, nursing staff, physicians, tests/treatments, dietary, room/accommodations, and family/friends.
The top 10 issues that most highly correlated with the likelihood of recommending a hospital to others were:
1. Are staff sensitive to the inconvenience that health problems and hospitalization can cause?
2. How cheerful are hospital staff?
3. Are staff concerned about patient privacy?
4. How much attention is paid to patients’ special or personal needs?
5. To what degree do nurses take health problems seriously?
6. What are the nurses’ technical skills?
7. What are the nurses’ attitudes toward patients calling them?
8. To what degree do nurses keep patients adequately informed about tests, treatments, and equipment?
9. How friendly are the nurses?
10. Do staff respond promptly to call buttons?
The data confirm the necessity for management to instill an atmosphere of empathy among hospital employees. Simply treating the physical manifestation of disease is not enough; staff must understand the entire range of socio-emotional responses that accompany the physical problem, Press Ganey concludes.
Hospital administrators tend to focus on hotel services’ such as quality of food, room temperature, and noise level, but these were among the least likely to count in terms of patient satisfaction. While such amenities offer "easier fixes" Press Ganey concludes, hospital leaders ignore interpersonal factors at their "own peril."
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